[Surgical resection of pancreatic cancer]

Surgical resection offers the only potential cure for pancreatic carcinoma. Although the overall prognosis remains a dismal, several recent series have reported an encouraging increase in 5-year survival after resection, exceeding 20%. As the reasons for this improvement are not clearly understood, numerous clinico-pathological parameters (demographic, intraoperative and histopathologic factors) have been investigated to evaluate their role in predicting long term survival. In this single-institution study, immediate and long-term outcome after pancreatic resection in patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma was retrospectively evaluated, focusing attention on the possible impact of different clinico-pathologic factors on long-term survival.