Background: Previously considered inoperable patients (borderline resectable, locally advanced, synchronous oligometastatic or metachronous pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PDAC)) are starting to become resectable thanks to advances in chemo/radiotherapy and the reduction in operative mortality.
Methods: This narrative review presents a chosen literature selection, giving a picture of the current state of treatment of these patients.
Results: Neoadjuvant therapy (NAT) is generally recognized as the treatment of choice before surgery. However, despite the increased efficacy, the best pathological response is still limited to 10.9-27.9% of patients. There are still limited data on the selection of possible NAT responders and how to diagnose non-responders early. Multidetector computed tomography has high sensitivity and low specificity in evaluating resectability after NAT, limiting the resection rate of resectable patients. Ca 19-9 and Positron emission tomography are giving promising results. The prediction of early recurrence after a radical resection of synchronous or metachronous metastatic PDAC, thus identifying patients with poor prognosis and saving them from a resection of little benefit, is still ongoing, although some promising data are available.
Conclusion: In conclusion, high-level evidence demonstrating the benefit of the surgical treatment of such patients is still lacking and should not be performed outside of high-volume centers with interdisciplinary teams of surgeons and oncologists.
Keywords: 18F-FDG-PET; CA 19-9; borderline resectable; locally advanced; neoadjuvant chemo/radiotherapy; pancreatic cancer; synchronous/metachronous oligometastatic.