[Surgical aspects of intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm of the pancreas].

Intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (IPMN) have a distinguished role amongst the exocrine pancreatic tumours. Although IPMN is less than 1% of all pancreatic neoplasms, cystic tumours, which has got in the spotlight recently, belong to this histopathological subtype up to 20% to 30%. IPMN originate from the main- and accessory pancreatic ducts. Rate of malignancy, prognosis and, therefore, the operative indications can be quite different. Although the prognosis of ductal carcinoma developed on the basis of IPMN is similar to classic adenocarcinoma - 10% 5-year survival - the overall prognosis of IPMN is much more favourable with over 70% survival rate in case of non-invasive cancers. Hence, it is important the timely diagnosis and surgical resection of IPMN to prevent development of invasive cancer.