Cancer of the pancreas. 50 years of surgery.

The course of 196 patients with proven carcinoma of the pancreas seen at Yale New Haven Hospital from 1972 to 1982 was analyzed. Only 73% of the patients were preoperatively expected to have cancer of the pancreas. The patients who underwent resection had the longest mean survival but also the longest total hospital stay. Twenty-seven patients survived 1 year or more, but nonresected patients constituted 81.5% of this group. The only 5-year survivor did not undergo resection. Forty-seven percent of patients who survived 1 year and had not undergone gastroduodenal bypass, developed duodenal obstruction. It was not possible to identify a subset of patients with a favorable prognosis. A review totaling approximately 37000 patients, of whom 4100 had undergone resections, revealed only 156 survivors, 12 of whom had not been resected, for an overall survival rate of only 0.4%. No author had more than 3.4% of the total number of patients as 5-year survivors.