Pancreatic Cancer in Southern Iran

Background: Pancreatic cancer is still a health problem worldwide. The present study aimed to report the clinical characteristics, prognostic factors and treatment outcomes of 55 cases of pancreatic cancer and the literature review and analysis. Methods: Between 1998 and 2008, 55 consecutive patients proven pathologically with adenocarcinoma of the pancreas and treated at our institution were enrolled. To find out the recent major series, a literature review was performed. We selected 35 major series including 257950 patients with pancreatic cancer for discussing the present study. Results: Twenty-four patients (44%) had resectable disease, 19 (34%) had locally advanced disease, and 12 (22%) had metastatic disease. There were 22 women and 33 men ranging in age from 16 to 76 years, with a median age of 57 years at diagnosis. After a median follow-up of 15 months (range=2-104 months) for surviving patients, 14 patients were alive and without disease, 3 patients were alive with disease and 38 patients had died due to disease. The 5-year overall survival was 27%. Conclusions: In this study and by analyzing the large data collection of recent major reported series, we found that pancreatic cancer tended to present at advanced stage, with a high frequency of locoregional and distant failure and a poor outcome. More effective local and systemic treatment for improving overall survival is needed.