Abstracts
1999 Digestive Disease Week

# 2131 EPIDEMIOLOGY OF PANCREATIC CANCER IN NORTHEAST ITALY: INCIDENCE, RESECTABILITY RATE, HOSPITAL STAY AND SURVIVAL (1990 - 1992)
S Pedrazzoli, C Pasquali, C Sperti, C Filipponi, Univ of Padova, Padova Italy

Pancreatic cancer is the fifth cause of death from G.I. cancer in Veneto region. This study was planned to investigate about the incidence of pancreatic cancer and its natural history in terms of hospital stay, and survival of each new case diagnosed during a 3-year period (1990-1992) among a population of 699.703 inhabitants. Methods: Diagnosis of pancreatic cancer (157.x according to ICD-1X) was obtained from the files on hospital discharge (8 public hospitals). To prevent code errors, all other possibly related diagnoses were screened. Only people resident in the study area were analized (57,5% of all censored cases), having the first diagnosis of cancer during the study period. All the clinical records of the pts were reviewed to rule out errors in the diagnosis (18.8%) and pts with pancreatic cancer diagnosed before 1990 (9.5%). Endocrine, benign tumors and cystic tumors were also excluded (5.3%). All the study pts had their clinical and hospital history investigated both backword (1 year) and forward (5-year or until death). Results: Incidence: Data from death certificates showed a raw incidence of 16.7 cases/100.000/year. 253 pts had their first diagnosis of pancreatic cancer during the study period (119 M, 134 F, averaging 72.1yrs) with a crude rate of 12.6/100.000 (13.3 M; 12.9 F) per year. Sixty pts (25.1%) were ³ 80 year old (90.9/100.000) and 56 were < 60 year old (23.6%). Hospital stay, resection rate and survival: complete clinical records were available for 243 out of 253 patiens; 771 admissions to the hospital (3.06 per pt, averaging 18.8 days of hospital stay) were analyzed; 29 pts (11.9%) had a diagnostic delay (9-315 days; mean 82.7 days). Forty-three pts (17.7%) underwent resective surgery (34 PD, 1 PT, 8 LP) and 93 underwent palliative surgery. Three pts are still alive; mean and median survival time were 214.9 and 132.5 days from first admission. Each pt spent 57.7 days in the hospital. In 24 cases (9.5%) the death occurred within 30 days from the first admission. 1, 2, 3 and 5-year survival rate were 20.9, 5.1, 2.9 and 1.2 respectively. Mean survival time after resective or palliative surgery or after medical treatment was 422.3, 233.7 and 207.5 days. Cancer characteristics: 152 pts (60%) had histological or citological diagnosis. The cancer was in the head in 74.6% and in the body-tail in 23.7%. Distant metastases were present at diagnosis in 39.8% of pts. Conclusion: this population based study shows an unespectedly high resection rate. Incidence and survival rate are in line with most recent studies

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