Patients suffering from one of the most difficult cancers to treat have been offered hope by a new treatment being pioneered at the Royal Free Hospital.

Surgeons at the Hampstead hospital treated a woman with pancreatic cancer in December using a procedure already being carried out in America, which doctors believe could save hundreds of lives.

The treatment - on patients with advanced tumours traditionally difficult to operate on - involves cutting out the tumour with a long segment of the portal vein, a major vessel near the pancreas, and replacing it with a piece of jugular vein from the neck.

The woman is said to be recovering well.

Royal Free surgeon Kito Fusai, who conducted the procedure with his colleague Dinesh Sharma, said: "There is no early detection test and the pancreas is not easily accessible.

"Patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer have extremely poor life expectancy - typically six months from diagnosis.

"If discovered early, before it has spread to other major organs such as the liver or lungs, the cancer may be treatable. However, currently only a small proportion of patients - around 10 per cent - are suitable for surgery. The only treatment for the vast majority of patients is chemotherapy or palliative treatment."

The pancreas is a gland that lies behind the stomach and produces pancreatic juices, which help digest food in the intestines, and produces insulin, which regulates the amount of sugar in the blood.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive forms of cancer and has one of the poorest life expectancies after diagnosis. Actor Patrick Swayze was recently reported to be suffering from the disease.

Mr Fusai added that the technique was exciting as it enabled surgeons to offer a whole new group of patients the opportunity for surgery.

"We expect it will double the number of patients each year - potentially saving many hundreds more lives."

The procedure is already being carried out at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston, Texas. Recent data from 55 patients who received the treatment has shown that survival rates are similar to those undergoing standard pancreatic surgery.

Pancreatic cancer is the eighth most common cancer in women and the 11th most common cancer in men in the UK.

Each year, there are more than 3,800 new cases in women, and more than 3,600 cases in men.