The continuing problem of carcinoma of the pancreas

The courses of 208 patients with adenocarcinoma of the pancreas were reviewed. The lesion was located in the head of the pancreas in 142 patients, (68%) and of these, in 22 patients the diagnosis was confirmed histologically at postmortem examination; 21 patients underwent laparotomy and biopsy with a 33% operative mortality and 3.4‐month average survival; 89 patients underwent biliary and/or gastric bypass with a 24% mortality and 4.8‐month average survival; 10 patients underwent pancreaticoduodenectomy with a 20% mortality and 14.6‐month average survival. The lesion was located in the body or tail of the pancreas in 77 patients (32%); and, of these, 15 patients had histologic confirmation of clinical diagnoses at postmortem examination; 19 patients underwent biopsy of extra‐abdominal metasases and survived an average of 1.4 months; 27 patients underwent laparotomy and biopsy with a 26% operative mortality and 3.5‐month average survival; 4 patients underwent gastric and/or biliary bypass with a 50% mortality and 4.5‐month average survival; one patient underwent noncurative distal pancreatectomy and survived 1 month postoperatively. No patient was cured of his disease. Of the 55 operative survivors of biliary bypass alone for carcinoma of the head of the pancreas, 5 (9%) required subsequent gastroenterostomy for duodenal obstruction.