Pancreatic cancer in southern Iran

Abstract EN

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 respectable 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 loco regional and distant failure and a poor outcome.

More effective local and systemic treatment for improving overall survival is needed.