The identification of prognostic factors for pancreatic cancer patients could provide insightful information for their management in the clinic. A total of 302 pancreatic cancer patients were enrolled in this study. The clinicopathological characteristics, treatment selection and laboratory test data were retrospectively retrieved from the medical records and follow-up data were obtained via telephone interview. Cox survival analysis was used to assess the potential prognostic factors, and survival curves were obtained by Kaplan-Meier analyses. The mortality rate of the patients was 83.4% (252/302) and the median survival of these patients was 6.1 months, with 1-, 2- and 3-year survival rates of 30.1 (91/302), 10.6 (32/302) and 2.6% (8/302), respectively. The most influential factors for the survival of these patients were the site of primary cancer, tumor stage, treatment selection, serum levels of glutamic-pyruvic transaminase, albumin, lactate dehydrogenase and hemoglobin, and white blood cell counts (P<0.05). The median survival of patients who did not receive any treatment or just received supportive treatment was 1.3 months, while the median overall survival of patients who underwent surgery, chemotherapy, biliary drainage therapy, arterial interventional chemotherapy and comprehensive treatment was 11.0, 7.3, 3.5, 9.0 and 11.0 months, respectively (P<0.05). Furthermore, single-drug chemotherapy was not statistically associated with patient survival in those who received the multi-drug regimen (P>0.05). However, the mortality risk of patients who received platinum chemotherapy was decreased [hazard ratio (HR)=0.56, 95% CI 0.35-0.88, P=0.011] compared to the patients who did not receive this treatment (P<0.05). Tumor stage, treatment selection, serum albumin levels, urea nitrogen, CA19-9, white blood cell and platelet counts were independent prognostic factors for the prediction of survival in pancreatic cancer. Future studies are required in order to verify these data. Chemotherapy with platinum regimens could improve overall survival in patients with pancreatic cancer.