Pancreatic adenocarcinoma with synchronous liver metastases – is there a role for surgery?

Pancreatic cancer remains one of the most aggressive neoplasms affecting people worldwide, with lower than one year rates of survival, especially if metastatic disease is encountered. In such cases palliative chemotherapy has been proposed, but the overall prognostic remains extremely poor. Meanwhile, in certain cases, spectacular response to chemotherapy has been observed, with significant reduction and even disappearance of the liver lesions. In this respect, attention was focused on establishing whether surgery might improve the outcomes in such cases. This is a literature review of the largest studies conducted on this issue.