Procedures and recommended times in the care process of the patient with pancreatic cancer: PAN-TIME consensus between scientific societies.

Purpose: Pancreatic cancer (PC) is a disease with bad prognosis. It is usually diagnosed at advanced stages and its treatment is complex. The aim of this consensus document was to provide recommendations by experts that would ameliorate PC diagnosis, reduce the time to treatment, and optimize PC management by interdisciplinary teams.

Methods: As a consensus method, we followed the modified Delphi methodology. A scientific committee of experts provided 40 statements that were submitted in two rounds to a panel of 87 specialists of 12 scientific societies.

Results: Agreement was reached for 39 of the 40 proposed statements (97.5%).

Conclusions: Although a screening of the asymptomatic population is not a feasible option, special attention to potential symptoms during primary care could ameliorate early diagnostic. It is especially important to decrease the period until diagnostic tests are performed. This consensus could improve survival in PC patients by decreasing the time to diagnose and time to treatment and by the implementation of multidisciplinary teams.