Intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (IPMN) are the most common cystic tumours of the pancreas. The preoperative diagnosis of IPMN malignancy is difficult and the majority of IPMN are malignant upon diagnosis. Thus, only the early radical resection of the pancreas with regional lymph node dissection offers the patient a chance for cure. A discussion of the type "to resect or not to resect" should, furthermore, be held only within the walls of high-volume pancreatic centres and patients managed by the "watchful waiting" strategy (mainly branch-duct type IPMN) should all be recruited into large randomised controlled trials aimed to discover reliable diagnostic criteria to differentiate between invasive and non-invasive IPMN. Until then an aggressive surgical approach should be recommended as the standard treatment for all patients with IPMN.