Long-Term Outcomes of Venous Resections in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Patients: A Nationwide Cohort Study

To investigate whether pancreatic resections (PR) for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is associated with worse survival when resection of the superior mesenteric vein/portal vein (SMV/PV) is required. BACKGROUND: PR for PDAC with resection of the superior mesenteric vein/portal vein (SMV/PV, PR+V resection) may be associated with inferior overall survival (OS) compared with PR without the need for SMV/PV resection (PR–V). We hypothesized that PR+V results in lower OS compared with PR–V. METHOD: Retrospective study using data from the nationwide Danish Pancreatic Cancer Database from 2011 to 2020. Data on patients who underwent PR for PDAC were extracted. A group of PR patients found nonresectable on exploratory laparotomy (EXP) was also included. OS was assessed using Kaplan-Meier and Cox proportional hazards models adjusting for confounders (age, sex, R-resection level, chemotherapy, comorbidities, histology T and N classification, procedure subtype as well as tumor distance to the SMV/PV). RESULTS: Overall, 2403 patients were identified. Six hundred two underwent exploration only (EXP group), whereas 412 underwent pancreatic resection with (PR+V group) and 1389 (PR–V) without SMV/PV resection. Five-year OS for the PR+V group was lower (20% vs 30%) compared with PR–V, although multivariate Cox proportional hazards modeling could not associate PR+V status with OS (Hazard ratio 1.11, P = 0.408). CONCLUSION: When correcting for confounders, PR+V was not associated with lower OS compared with PR–V.