[Duodenal cancer. A clinical-pathological study].

Seven primary carcinomas of the duodenum were observed from 1973 to 1976 at the University Hospital Hamburg; four in females and three in males with an age between 32 and 69 years of age. The interval between the first symptoms (epigastric pain, jaundice, pruritus, diarrhea, and loss of weight) and surgical therapy (duodeno-pancreatectomy) averaged four months. All carcinomas were resected radically from the macroscopic (intraoperative) aspect as well as from the histological findings. Local tumour recurrences which proved fatal occurred in five patients within nine to twenty-one months. One patient died of peritonitis and another of pancreatitis. The diagnostic mode has been changed since the introduction of endoscopy and retrograde cholangio-pancreaticography (ERCP). The consistent inclusion of the duodenum in routine gastroscopy leads to the hope that more carcinomas of the duodenum can be detected early.