Results following the surgical treatment of pancreatic cancer

: A retrospective study was conducted into clinical data recorded from 152 patients who had been operated on for carcinoma of the pancreas, between 1967 and July 1986. Tumours could be removed only in 25 cases (16.5 per cent). Non-removing, purely palliative operations had to be performed on 127 patients (83.5 per cent), because of too advanced tumour stages. In most of these cases, surgical action was taken with the view to eliminating obstructive jaundice or pyloric stenosis. The surgical approaches to 22 cases (14.5 per cent) even had to be completed as exploratory laparotomy. Cumulative survival rates revealed extremely unfavourable long-term prognosis of pancreas carcinoma. Five-year survival has proved to be achievable only through radical removal of the carcinoma but was found to be restricted to few cases.