Incidence and survival of pancreatic head and body and tail cancers: a population-based study in the United States

OBJECTIVES

Cancer of the body/tail of the pancreas is frequently separated from pancreatic head tumors. No studies have examined whether the demographics, disease characteristics, and patient survival with pancreatic body/tail cancers are different from pancreatic head tumors.

METHODS

We used the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registry to identify 43,946 cases of pancreatic cancer. The yearly incidence and survival rates were calculated. Cox proportional hazards model examined temporal trends in survival.

RESULTS

The incidence rate for pancreatic head cancer has remained at 5.6% per 100,000, whereas the rate for pancreatic body/tail cancers has increased by 46% between 1973 and 2002. The 3-year survival rate has increased slightly for both groups. The Cox proportional hazards model analysis confirms this improvement. The 3-year survival rate for local-stage pancreatic body/tail cancer is 20.0% compared with 9% for local-stage pancreatic head cancer.

CONCLUSIONS

This study indicates that the incidence of pancreatic head cancer has remained stable, whereas the incidence of pancreatic body/tail cancers is rising. Despite higher survival rates among patients with pancreatic head cancer compared with those with pancreatic body/tail cancers in several variables, patients with local-stage pancreatic body/tail cancers had higher survival rates compared with local-stage pancreatic head cancer.