Pancreatic and Periampullary Tumors in Greenland Inuit

Especially since the Second World War the indigenous population in the Arctic, the Inuit have gone through a Westernization, which has improved the health conditions but also changed the disease panorama with an increasing incidence of cancer. This is exemplified by a decrease in physical activity, due to the depletion of the Greenlandic hunting traditions, tobacco smoking and unhealthy diet. At the beginning of the westernization, malignant diseases were highly uncommon, but they started to increase due to the increasing life expectancy and changes in lifestyle. The incidence of pancreatic and periampullary cancer has been reported to be the same among Inuit in Canada, Denmark, and the United States but with a higher incidence than among the Caucasian population in the three countries. The aim with this study was to investigate the results of pancreatic surgery for pancreatic and periampullary tumors in Inuit patients in Greenland at to compare the outcome of surgery and the overall survival with a cohort of Danish patients.