Barbora Desatová, Stella Hlinšťáková, Mohammed Al Bedairi, Ľubomír Michalko, Ivan Vranka
Although malignant pancreatic tumors are rare, they are getting a very frequent cause of cancer death, for example in the USA they are the fourth most frequent cause of cancer death. In the first year after the diagnostic assessment, the mortality reaches more than 70 % and after five years, the mortality reaches 83 to 97 %, according to various sources. The mortality of pancreatic cancer has been stable in the last 20 years. The resection is the only partially effective therapy. Because of the late onset of clinical symptoms, the lack of specific symptoms and the limited diagnostic possibilities, the pancreatic tumor spreads early and only 20 % of the patients have the carcinoma in a stage when a resection can be performed. The exact cause of pancreatic cancer is not known, the K-ras gene mutations seem to be the most important for the initiation of the carcinogenesis. Smoking is the most important exogenous risk factor. Today there is no universal screening program. The screening of premalignant lesions and the screening of malignant lesions in the early stage of disease is performed only in the groups of high risk patients.