Landmarks in pancreatic cancer studies

Pancreatic cancer is a rare but fatal disease. Patients present advanced disease due to the lack of or typical symptoms when the tumor is still localized. A high-quality image processing system has been in practice to detect the pancreatic tumor and determine the possibility of surgery, and preoperative methods, such as ERCP are increasingly used to complement the staging modality. Pancreaticoduodenectomy is one of the complicated surgeries with potential morbidity. The minimally invasive pancreatic resections, both robot-assisted and laparoscopic, have become a part of standard surgical practice worldwide over the last decade. Moreover, advancements in adjuvant chemotherapy have improved the long-term outcomes in current clinical practice. The systemic conservative treatment, including targeted agents, remains the mainstay of treatment for patients with advanced disease. An increasing number of studies are focused on modulating the pancreatic tumor microenvironment to improve the efficacy of the immunotherapeutic strategies. Herein, the role of preoperative therapy, the novel surgical strategy, and individualized systemic treatment in pancreatic cancer is investigated. Also, the randomized controlled studies that have defined the neoadjuvant and surgical management of pancreatic cancer have been summarized.