Abstract

Objective To determine the time to recurrence of pancreatic adenocarcinoma of the head of the pancreas after curative resection at one tertiary-care Health Care Campus and to determine the factors that predict early recurrence. Methods Retrospective data was gathered from 64 consecutive pancreatic adenocarcinoma patients undergoing curative Whipple procedures from 2007-2011. Patients were divided into early recurrence, within 185 days, and late or no recurrence. Results Disease-free survival after 6 months was 64%; at 8 months, it was 50%. Factors that contributed to early recurrence included increased age at surgery (P=0.03746), larger tumor size on pathology (P=0.0093), and resection margins less than 0.1mm (P=0.0471). Larger tumor size as measured by endoscopic ultrasound showed a trend for early recurrence (P=0.086821). Conclusions Aggressive screening and detection mechanisms for pancreatic carcinoma should be applied more frequently and with increased age to ensure identification of pancreatic carcinoma before large growth in tumor size.