Exocrine Pancreatic Cancer: A Clinico-epidemiologic Study

Background: Incidence of pancreatic cancer is relatively low compared to other types of cancer but had the lowest survival rate of all cancers.

Objective: To describe clinical-epidemiological features of pancreatic cancer patients recorded in our region and assessed its different prognostic factors.

Materials and Methods: The medical records of patients with pancreatic cancer attended to Clinical Oncology, and Nuclear Medicine department and Oncology centre between 2005-2014 were reviewed.

Results: This retrospective study included 380 patients with exocrine pancreatic cancer. Median age was 56 years with male predominance (65%). The most predominant histologic type was adenocarcinoma with grade III in 55% of patients. Tumours were located at the head of the pancreas were 75.5%, followed by the body (20.8%). Most patients presented with metastatic disease (57.9%). The pain was the most common presenting symptom (63.9%), while jaundice was found in 47.4% of patients. 23.7% of patients were smokers and 19.7% suffered from diabetes mellitus. 1-year survival rate was 28%. On multivariate analysis; we found significant lower survival rate with male gender (P=0.004), high-grade disease (P=0.002), older age (P=0.001), PC located in tail and body (P=0.006), high level of CA19-9(> 37U/L) (P=0.001), and metastatic cases (P=0.003).

Conclusion: This study is a clinical-epidemiologic survey of pancreatic cancer in our locality. However, because of its relatively small number of patients and retrospective nature; larger prospective studies are needed to study the epidemiologic and genetic basis of pancreatic cancer in our region.