Current controversies and advances in the management of pancreatic adenocarcinoma

Abstract

Pancreatic adenocarcinoma is a lethal disease with a mortality rate that has not significantly improved over decades. This is likely due to several challenges unique to pancreatic cancer. Most patients with pancreatic cancer are diagnosed at a late stage of disease due to the lack of specific symptoms prompting an early investigation. A small subset of patients who are diagnosed at an early stage have a better chance at survival with curative surgical resection, but most patients still succumb to the disease in a few years. The dismal overall prognosis is due to suspected micro-metastasis at an early stage. Due to this reason, there is a recent interest in treating all patients with pancreatic cancers with systemic therapy upfront (including the ones that are surgically resectable). This approach is still not the standard of care due to the lack of robust prospective data available. Recent advancements in treatment regimens of chemotherapy, radiation and immunotherapy have improved the overall short-term survival but the long-term survival still remains poor. Novel approaches in diagnosis and treatment have shown promise in clinical studies but long-term clinical data is lacking. The following manuscript presents an overview of the epidemiology, diagnosis, staging, recent advances, novel approaches and controversies in the management of pancreatic adenocarcinoma.