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Call for papers - Pancreatic cancer surgery

Guest Editors:
Marcello Di Martino: Piemonte Orientale University, Hospital Maggiore della Carità, Italy
Michael El Boghdady: Guy's and St. Thomas' Hospital, UK

Submission Status: Open   |   Submission Deadline: 15 June 2024


Pancreatic cancer is among the most malignant in digestive diseases and the survival rate is among the lowest for all cancer types. Surgery offers the only realistic chance to cure, while pancreatic cancer lacks characteristic symptoms in the early stage and only 1 out of 5 patients is qualified for potential curative surgery at diagnose. When the cancer is too widespread to be removed completely, palliative surgery may be done to relieve symptoms or to prevent certain complications. The survival rate of pancreatic has been slightly increased over recent decades, and the improvements have been attributed primarily to improvements in the clinical recognition and diagnosis and development of multiagent cytotoxic therapies.

To recognize the surgeons’ efforts to improve survival and life quality of patients with pancreatic cancer, we have decided to launch a BMC Surgery collection, “Pancreatic cancer surgery”.

Meet the Guest Editors

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Marcello Di Martino: Piemonte Orientale University, Hospital Maggiore della Carità, Italy

Marcello Di Martino is currently serving as Lecturer in Surgery and Surgeon at the University of Piemonte Orientale and University Maggiore Hospital della Carità, Novara, Italy. He has served as Senior Clinical Fellow in HPB and Liver Transplantation Unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London, UK;  HPB Surgeon at La Princesa University Hospital, Madrid, Spain and Hepatobiliary and Liver Transplantation Surgeon at AORN Cardarelli, Naples, Italy He is a Fellow of the European Board of Surgery (FEBS) in HPB Surgery and is the Elected Chair of the Early Career Group (ECG) of the International Association of Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Surgery (IHPBA) (2023). Dr. Di Martino is a member of the Publications and Communications Committee of the European-African Association of Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Surgery (E-AHPBA) (2022 to present). He is a former Member of the HPB Committee of the Spanish Society of Surgery (AEC) (2018-2022) and the local PI of several multicentric studies. His special interests are liver and pancreatic surgery, with particular emphasis on the surgical treatment of these diseases and surgical training. 

Michael El Boghdady: Guy's and St. Thomas' Hospital, UK

Michael El Boghdady is currently a chief registrar in Gastrointestinal Surgery at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital, London. He is working as a specialist registrar with a leadership and management role. He is passionate about surgical education, and obtained MD degree in surgeon's errors and laparoscopic training from the University of Dundee. Dr. El Boghdady also obtained his MCh in general surgery from the University of Edinburgh and other master’s degrees in health professions education and in higher education. He is a member of the Faculty of Surgical Trainers of the Royal College of Edinburgh and Fellow of the higher education academy. Dr. El Boghdady is also playing a national role as the Equality and Diversity officer and the South-East London rep for the Association of Surgeons in Training (ASiT). His specialist interests are in upper gastrointestinal and pancreatic surgery, laparoscopic training, and surgical education.

About the collection

Pancreatic cancer is among the most malignant in digestive diseases and the survival rate is among the lowest for all cancer types. Surgery offers the only realistic chance to cure, while pancreatic cancer lacks characteristic symptoms in the early stage and only 1 out of 5 patients is qualified for potential curative surgery at diagnose. When the cancer is too widespread to be removed completely, palliative surgery may be done to relieve symptoms or to prevent certain complications. The survival rate of pancreatic has been slightly increased over recent decades, and the improvements have been attributed primarily to improvements in the clinical recognition and diagnosis and development of multiagent cytotoxic therapies.

To recognize the surgeons’ efforts to improve survival and life quality of patients with pancreatic cancer, we have decided to launch a BMC Surgery collection, “Pancreatic cancer surgery”.

We invite submissions from all aspects of this developing field including, but not limited to:

  • Curative surgery and outcome
  • Palliative surgery and outcome
  • Management of patient following surgery

Image credit: © sakramir / stock.adobe.com

  1. Pancreatic ductal carcinoma (PDAC) is an extremely poor prognostic disease. Even though multidisciplinary treatment for PDAC has developed, supportive therapies, such as nutritional therapy or perioperative re...

    Authors: Shota Kuwabara, Yuta Takeuchi, Osamu Sato, Tomoko Mizota, Masaomi Ichinokawa, Katsuhiko Murakawa, Yuma Aoki, Keita Ishido, Koichi Ono and Satoshi Hirano
    Citation: BMC Surgery 2024 24:116
    Content type: Research Published on:

  2. In pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), invasion of connective tissues surrounding major arteries is a crucial prognostic factor after radical resection. However, why the connective tissues invasion is ass...

    Authors: Hirofumi Akita, Kei Asukai, Yosuke Mukai, Shinichiro Hasegawa, Takeshi Omori, Hiroshi Miyata, Masayuki Ohue, Masato Sakon, Hiroshi Wada and Hidenori Takahashi
    Citation: BMC Surgery 2024 24:107
    Content type: Research Published on:

  3. Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remains one of the most lethal cancers worldwide, with an overall 5-year survival rate of only 5%. The effect of perioperative treatment factors including duration of su...

    Authors: Laura Marr Spore, Emilie Even Dencker, Eske Aasvang Kvanner, Carsten Palnaes Hansen, Stefan Kobbelgaard Burgdorf, Paul Suno Krohn, Sophie Louise Gisela Kollbeck, Jan Henrik Storkholm and Martin Sillesen
    Citation: BMC Surgery 2024 24:76
    Content type: Research Published on:

  4. Clinically relevant (CR) postoperative pancreatic fistula (POPF) after distal pancreatectomy (DP) are common. Endoscopic treatment (ET) has only scarcely been explored. The aim of this study was to evaluate ri...

    Authors: Stefan Linder, Marcus Holmberg, Louiza Agopian-Dahlenmark, Helena Zhao, Johan Hardvik Åkerström, Ernesto Sparrelid and Poya Ghorbani
    Citation: BMC Surgery 2024 24:33
    Content type: Research Published on:

  5. To investigate the prognostic prediction of a new indicator, combined by tumor grade and Ki-67, in patients with resected pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC).

    Authors: Bo Li, Xiaoyi Yin, Xiuwen Ding, Guoxiao Zhang, Hui Jiang, Cuimin Chen, Shiwei Guo and Gang Jin
    Citation: BMC Surgery 2023 23:370
    Content type: Research Published on:

  6. The treatment of borderline resectable (BR) and locally advanced (LA) pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has evolved with a wider application of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACHT). The aim of this study was...

    Authors: Luís Filipe Abreu de Carvalho, Filip Gryspeerdt, Niki Rashidian, Kobe Van Hove, Lambertine Maertens, Suzane Ribeiro, Anne Hoorens and Frederik Berrevoet
    Citation: BMC Surgery 2023 23:296
    Content type: Research Published on:

  8. For PDAC patients undergoing resection, it remains unclear whether metastases to the paraaortic lymph nodes (PALN+) have any prognostic significance and whether metastases should lead to the operation not bein...

    Authors: Martin Sillesen, Carsten Palnæs Hansen, Stefan Kobbelgaard Burgdorf, Emilie Even Dencker, Paul Suno Krohn, Sophie Louise Gisela Kollbeck, Mogens Tornby Stender and Jan Henrik Storkholm
    Citation: BMC Surgery 2023 23:214
    Content type: Research Published on:

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of Research Articles, Data Notes, Case Reports, Study Protocols, and Database Articles. Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you have read our submission guidelines. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select ["Pancreatic cancer surgery"] from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Guest Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Guest Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.