Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Nov 21, 2018; 24(43): 4846-4861
Published online Nov 21, 2018. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v24.i43.4846
Pancreatic cancer: A review of clinical diagnosis, epidemiology, treatment and outcomes
Andrew McGuigan, Paul Kelly, Richard C Turkington, Claire Jones, Helen G Coleman, R Stephen McCain
Andrew McGuigan, Richard C Turkington, Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast BT9 7AE, United Kingdom
Paul Kelly, Department of Pathology, Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast BT12 6BA, United Kingdom
Claire Jones, R Stephen McCain, Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Mater Hospital, Belfast BT14 6AB, United Kingdom
Helen G Coleman, R Stephen McCain, Centre for Public Health, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast BT12 6BJ, United Kingdom
Author contributions: McGuigan A, Turkington RC, Coleman HG, McCain RS designed research; McGuigan A, Kelly P, McCain RS performed research; McGuigan A, Kelly P, Turkington RC, Jones C, Coleman HG and McCain RS all wrote the paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors of this manuscript confirm there is no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: R Stephen McCain, BM, BCh, Surgeon, Centre for Public Health, Royal Victoria Hospital, Block B, Belfast BT12 6BA, United Kingdom. smccain02@qub.ac.uk
Telephone: +44-28-90635009 Fax: +44-28-90235900
Received: September 25, 2018
Peer-review started: September 25, 2018
First decision: October 14, 2018
Revised: October 19, 2018
Accepted: October 27, 2018
Article in press: October 27, 2018
Published online: November 21, 2018
Core Tip

Core tip: The incidence of pancreatic adenocarcinoma is rising in the developed world and modifiable lifestyle factors such as alcohol and obesity may play an important role in this. The five-year survival from this disease is as low as 2% in some countries, despite improvement in surgical technique, chemotherapy regimens and the introduction of neo-adjuvant chemoradiotherapy. The poor outcomes are largely due to the late presentation of the disease and therefore the detection of early tumours or premalignant conditions is essential for treatment to be initiated early. The optimum screening test is however yet to be identified. Given the poor outcomes and current gaps in knowledge surrounding this malignant process, further research is essential to understand this disease better, enable early diagnosis and improve survival.