Published online Aug 21, 2014. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v20.i31.10802
Revised: January 27, 2014
Accepted: April 8, 2014
Published online: August 21, 2014
The prognosis in patients with pancreatic cancer is poor and this cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Although surgical resection is the only curative treatment of choice for pancreatic cancer, the majority of patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage, thus only 10%-15% of them are suitable for curative resection and the overall survival is less than 5%. Chemotherapy for metastatic disease is to palliate symptoms of patients and to improve survival. Therefore, prognostic factors are important and a correct definition of poor prognostic factors may help to guide more aggressive adjuvant or aggressive treatment protocols in patients with pancreatic cancer. This article reviews the prognostic factors affecting survival of patients with pancreatic cancer in the light of recent advances in the literature.
Core tip: The overall prognosis associated with pancreatic cancer has not improved over the last 20 years, even if new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies have emerged. Thus, investigations on predictive factors in pancreatic cancer are needed because these factors should have predictive value in relation to longer survival after surgery than after palliative treatment.Prognostic factors are important and a correct definition of poor prognostic factors may help to guide more aggressive adjuvant or aggressive treatment protocols in patients with pancreatic cancer.