Pancreatic cancer (pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, PDAC) is one of the most lethal tumour types worldwide. The majority of patients present late with locally advanced or metastatic disease. Therefore, despite advances in operative techniques, perioperative management and oncological treatments, the overall 5-year survival remains < 5%. The reason for poor survival is due to disease recurrence even after curative surgical resection for small tumours. Determining factors that lead to disease recurrence may help in identifying those with a poor prognosis so that treatment options can be tailored to each patient. We investigated whether operative technique, clinicopathological factors or specific genetic mutations could influence disease recurrence. Further, we sought to identify a biomarker in the peripheral circulation that could be used as a prognostic marker. We confirmed that a positive medial resection margin and a high frequency of KRAS mutation in the tumour tissue result in early disease recurrence. Further, that the altered expression of five microRNAs may be useful as a blood-based prognostic predictor.