Pancreatic surgery: evolution and current tailored approach

Improving the Standard of Care for All-A Practical Guide to Developing a Center of Excellence

Pancreatic surgery is one of the more challenging procedures performed by surgeons. The operations are technically complex and have historically been accompanied by a substantial risk for mortality and postoperative complications. Other pancreatic pathologies require advanced therapeutic procedures that are highly endoscopist-dependent, requiring specific, knowledge-based training for optimal outcomes. An increase in diagnosed pancreatic pathologies every year reinforces a critical need for experienced surgeons, gastroenterologists/endoscopists, hospitals, and support personnel in the management of complex pancreatic cases and thus, well-designed Centers of Excellence (CoE). In this paper, we outline the framework for a Pancreas CoE across three developmental domains: (1) establishing the foundation; (2) formalizing the program; (3) solidifying the CoE status. This framework can likely be translated to any disease or procedure-specific service-line and facilitate the development of a successful CoE.

Hypoalbuminemia after pancreaticoduodenectomy does not predict or affect short-term postoperative prognosis

Background

Hypoalbuminemia (HA) is a risk factor for the complications following pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD). This study aimed to explore the factors that affect HA following PD and evaluate the influence of HA on the short-term postoperative prognosis.

Methods: Total 163 patients who underwent PD and met inclusion criteria were subdivided into two groups according to the status of HA. The relationships of postoperative albumin (ALB) level and exogenous ALB infusion with postoperative responses and complications were assessed by correlation analysis.

Results

Preoperative ALB ≥35.0 g/L and postoperative complication grade were factors influencing HA after PD. Correlation analysis demonstrated significant negative correlation of postoperative ALB level with white blood cell (WBC) count and neutrophil count. Postoperative exogenous ALB infusion positively correlated with blood urea nitrogen, creatinine, complication grade, postoperative intraperitoneal hemorrhage and pancreatic fistula. No significant differences were observed between the complications and30-day mortality rates with and without postoperative HA.

Conclusions

HA after PD should not be considered as an indicator but rather a result of poor prognosis. WBCs, especially neutrophils, are involved in reducing postoperative ALB level. Infusion of exogenous ALB to maintain ALB > 30 g/L could not improve clinical outcomes.

Laparoscopic pancreaticoduodenectomy: a descriptive and comparative review

Laparoscopic pancreaticoduodenectomy (LPD) is an extremely challenging surgery. First described in 1994, it has been slow to gain in popularity. Recently, however, we have seen an increase in the number of centers performing this operation, including our own institution, as well as an increase in the quantity of published data. The purpose of this review is to describe the current status of LPD as described in the literature. We performed a literature search in the PubMed database using MeSH terms "laparoscopy" and "pancreaticoduodenectomy". We then identified articles in the English language with over 20 patients that focused on LPD only. Review articles were excluded and only one article per institution was used for descriptive analysis in order to avoid overlap. There were a total of eight articles meeting review criteria, consisting of 492 patients. On descriptive analysis we found that percent of LPD due to high-grade malignancy averaged 47% over all articles. Average operative time was 452 minutes, blood loss 369 cc's, pancreatic leak rate 15%, delayed gastric emptying 8.6%, length of hospital stay 9.4 days, and short term mortality 2.3%. Comparison studies between open pancreaticoduodenectomy (OPD) and LPD suggested decreased blood loss, longer operative time, similar post-operative complication rate, decreased pain, and shorter hospital length of stay for LPD. There was also increased number of lymph nodes harvested and similar margin free resections with LPD in the majority of studies. LPD is a safe surgery, providing many of the advantages typically associated with laparoscopic procedures. We expect this operation to continue to gain in popularity as well as be offered in increasingly more complex cases. In future studies, it will be beneficial to look further at the oncologic outcome data of LPD including survival.