Early detection of pancreatic cancer

none1noI read the article by Tanaka et al.1 that was recently published in Pancreas with interest. Although their report is preliminary, the authors have made an important point that I hope will be confirmed in a more extensive group of patients: that periodic screening abdominal ultrasound may be useful for early detection of pancreatic cancer. In this connection I would like to point out that in a recent multicenter study of nonfunctioning pancreatic endocrine tumors2 we showed that in 64 (34.8%) of the 184 patients studied the tumor was discovered incidentally by abdominal ultrasound performed as part of a routine check-up of asymptomatic individuals. Patients in the group of 64 had significantly fewer metastases as well as significantly greater survival as compared with the 120 symptomatic patients (p= 0.0043). From these results we concluded that abdominal pancreatic ultrasound should be performed every 1 to 2 years in all individuals over the age of fifty, especially in view of the fact that it is such a simple and unexpensive technique. We all know that early diagnosis is still our best defense against tumors, so if this can be done with a test as simple and cheap as ultrasound, there is no good reason not to do it.noneGullo L.Gullo L