Concomitant chemoradiation and intraoperative radiotherapy in pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

The prognosis of pancreatic adenocarcinoma remains poor, with a 5-year surv ival rate lower than 5 %. Resection, the gold standard treatment, can be pe rformed in less than 10 % of patients. Following surgery, the median surviv al is 12 months. Concomitant chemoradiation, as an adjuvant treatment could be superior to surgery alone, in terms of survival; controlled trials are currently performed. Neoadjuvant chemoradiation is a new approach, potentia lly able to increase survival and resection rate. Finally, current data reg arding intraoperative irradiation are exposed. (C) 2000 Editions scientifiq ues et medicales Elsevier SAS.