The uncinate process has unique anatomical characteristics, which may make cancers that develop there radiopathologically different from cancers that develope elsewhere in the pancreas. Previous studies on uncinate and non-uncinate process pancreatic head cancer have yielded conflicting results. Some investigators concluded that location of pancreatic head cancer did not correlate with prognosis. Meanwhile, other investigators demonstrated a significant association between tumor location and prognosis, showing that uncinate process pancreatic head cancer was associated with a higher mortality risk versus non-uncinate process pancreatic head cancer. However, it still remains unelucidated whether tumor location is an independent prognostic factor of overall survival (OS) of pancreatic head cancer patients. In addition, it is unclear whether tumor location could guide prognostic stratification of pancreatic head cancer patients. So, the primary objectives of our study were to investigate the relationship between uncinate and non-uncinate process pancreatic head cancer and overall survival (OS) and further explore prognostic stratification between the two tumor locations and OS in different subgroups of patients.
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