XXXX of the pancreas: Opportunities and risks.

@entity1 @entity788 @entity4929 @entity146 @entity5 @entity1586
@entity788 ( @entity788 ) are a high prevalence disease. It is estimated that about 20% of the general population is affected by @entity788 . Some of those lesions can progress till @entity5 , while others behave in a benign fashion. In @entity4929 of the pancreas can be considered as the pancreatic analogon to @entity1586 . Treatment of these precursor lesions at an early stage can potentially reduce @entity788 mortality and introduce a new "era" of preemptive pancreatic surgery. However, only few of those lesions have an @entity146 . The accuracy of preoperative diagnosis, i.e., the distinction between the various @entity788 is around 60%, and the ability to predict the future outcome is also less accurate. For this reason, a significant number of @entity1 are currently over-treated with an unnecessary, high-risk surgery. Furthermore, the majority of @entity1 with PCN are on life-long follow-up with imaging modality, which has huge cost implications for the Health Care System for limited benefits considering that a significant proportion of @entity788 are or behave like benign lesions. The current guidelines for the diagnosis and management of @entity788 are more based on expert opinion than on evidence. For all those reasons, the management of @entity5 remains a controversial area of pancreatology. On one hand, the detection of @entity788 and the surgical treatment of pre-cancerous @entity5 can be considered a big opportunity to reduce @entity788 related mortality. On the other hand, @entity788 are associated with a considerable risk of under- or over- treatment of @entity1 and incur high costs for the Health Care System.
