Surgical curability and prognosis for standard versus extended resection for T1 carcinoma of the pancreas.

The prognosis of 185 patients who underwent surgical resection of small carcinomas of less than 2.0 centimeters (T1) of the pancreas in whom either standard or extended resection was used was analyzed. Pancreatic resection was performed upon 98.3 percent of the patients who were more than 49 years old. The location of the tumor was the head of the pancreas in 83.4 percent of the patients, the body of the pancreas in 13.2 percent and the tail of the pancreas in 3.3 percent. Tumor staging revealed 42.9 percent in stage I and the remainder in advanced stage, that is 33.1 percent stage II, 18.8 percent stage III and 5.1 percent stage IV. When standard resection was performed, surgical cure rates were more than 80 percent in stage I, II and III, but in stage IV, it was only 16.6 percent. After extended resection, the surgical cure rates increased even in stage IV (100 percent). There were no significant differences in the overall postoperative cumulative survival rates between standard and extended operation. In stage II, however, a significant better survival rate was observed after extended resection than after standard resection.