Background: We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in the treatment of stage 1 pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) from surgery first followed by adjuvant therapy (AT) to Neoadjuvant therapy (NAT) first followed by surgery and this is reflected in the current NCCN guidelines as well. Data comparing these two modalities are limited. AIM: To compare long term survival between Surgery + AT and NAT + Surgery in a large National Cancer Database for stage 1 PDAC. Methods: We identified patients with the NCDB with surgically resected AJCC clinical stage 1, 1A, and 1B PDAC between 2004-2016. Patients were stratified into two groups to assess outcomes: AT and NAT. Patients with incomplete survival and sequence of therapy were excluded. Baseline demographic data, 90-Day Mortality, Median survival, and Hazard ratios (HR) for survival was evaluated. Results: 9017 pts with Clinical stage 1, 1A, 1B PDAC between 2004-2016 were identified. Of these 7453 pts had surgery followed by AT; and 1564 pts had NAT followed by surgery. There was a statistically significant difference in age (66.0±9.9 years for AT vs. 64.7±9.78 years for NAT, p < 0.001) but no difference in Charlson Comorbidity Scoring (p = 0.618) or sex (p = 0.073). 90-Day Mortality was 0.35% in the AT group compared to 0.83% in the NAT group (p = < 0.001). Median survival was 28.5 (95% CI 26.5-29.9) months in the NAT group compared to 25.4 (95% CI 24.7-26.1) months in the AT group. With AT as the reference group for survival, there was a HR of 0.904 (95% CI 0.845-0.968, p = 0.003) for NAT. Conclusions: In this retrospective cohort of patients, NAT was associated with increased overall survival. However, NAT was associated with an increased 90 day mortality. A randomized, controlled trial is necessary to further support the superiority of NAT in the management of stage 1 PDAC.