title: Survival improvement in patients with pancreatic cancer by decade: a period analysis of the SEER database, 1981-2010.
abstract: Pancreatic cancer (PaCa) is an aggressive malignancy with a high mortality rate and a poor prognosis. To evaluate treatment outcomes of patients with pancreatic cancer over the past three decades, data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registries were used to assess the survival of patients with PaCa. A total of 63,530 patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer between 1981 and 2010 were identified from nine original SEER registries. The 1-year relative survival rates (RSRs) improved each decade, from 17.0% to 19.9% to 28.2% (p < 0.0001), with a larger increase during the third decade than during the second decade. However, the long-term survival rates have remained very low. The 5-year RSRs increased from 3.1% to 4.4% to 6.9% over these three decades--i.e., still only few patients with PaCa survive more than 5 years. Furthermore, our analysis demonstrated that the survival rates for all the patients with pancreatic cancer were lower in patients of lower socioeconomic status and black race. These results will help predict future trends in PaCa incidence and survival, contribute to better-designed clinical trials by eliminating disparities that may affect the results, and thereby improve the clinical management and outcomes of PaCa.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, The Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, Guangdong 519000, China.
authors.forename: Huanhuan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, The Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, Guangdong 519000, China.
authors.forename: Haiqing
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, The Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, Guangdong 519000, China.
authors.forename: Guobin
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, University of Toledo Medical Center, Toledo, OH 43614, United States.
authors.forename: Hongliu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Translational Molecular Pathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, United States.
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D010190:Pancreatic Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality* / Q000473:pathology; D018426:SEER Program; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D015996:Survival Rate