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Incidentalomas of the Pancreas

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Current Controversies in Cancer Care for the Surgeon

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Abstract

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has a poor prognosis which has not appreciably changed over the past decades despite advances in surgical and medical therapies. Most patients present with advanced disease and are not amenable to surgical extirpation. Even with intended curative resection, long-term survival is rare as PDAC is likely systemic very early in the disease process. There are currently no valid screening tools for PDAC but an increasing number of pancreatic lesions are detected due to the ubiquitous use of abdominal imaging in the workup for other diseases. A pancreatic incidental finding may be an opportunity for early diagnosis of a pancreatic malignancy. Conversely, however, many incidentally discovered pancreatic lesions are of little clinical consequence and pancreatic surgery has a high associated morbidity. Thus the management of a pancreatic incidentaloma is a medical quandary. In this article, we discuss the various incidentally discovered pancreatic lesions, with particular attention to the risk of pancreatic malignancy and potential management strategies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgery, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, 1275 York Ave, C-1272, New York, NY, 10065, USA

    John C. McAuliffe M.D., Ph.D.

  2. Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Department of Surgery, University of Atlanta at Birmingham, 1720 2nd Avenue South, Kracke Building (KB) Room 428, Birmingham, AL, 35294-0016, USA

    John D. Christein M.D.

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  1. John C. McAuliffe M.D., Ph.D.
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Correspondence to John D. Christein M.D. .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Gastrointestinal and Laparoscopic Surgery, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, USA

    Katherine A. Morgan

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McAuliffe, J.C., Christein, J.D. (2016). Incidentalomas of the Pancreas. In: Morgan, K. (eds) Current Controversies in Cancer Care for the Surgeon. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16205-8_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16205-8_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16204-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16205-8

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