With progressive advance in surgical technic radical but curative operations have been made possible in cases of carcinoma of the pancreas. For these operations to be successfully employed, however, it is of utmost importance that an early diagnosis be made. Yet accuracy of diagnosis at any stage is not great, especially when there is no jaundice or when the body or tail of the pancreas is predominantly involved (table 1). In many cases the disease is incorrectly diagnosed
and its presence is missed in the early stages because in the mind of the average physician certain impressions of traditional diagnostic criteria have persisted despite the fact that they have been repeatedly shown to be false.
This study was undertaken to establish, first, the current leading impressions of the diagnostic criteria of the disease carcinoma of the pancreas, and second, to determine from a review of a series of proved cases