Development and validation of web calculators to predict early recurrence and long-term survival in patients with duodenal papilla carcinoma after pancreaticoduodenectomy

BACKGROUND: Duodenal papilla carcinoma (DPC) is prone to relapse even after radical pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD) (including robotic, laparoscopic and open approach). This study aimed to develop web calculators to predict early recurrence (ER) (within two years after surgery) and long-term survival in patients with DPC after PD. METHODS: Patients with DPC after radical PD were included. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to identify independent risk factors. Two web calculators were developed based on independent risk factors in the training cohort and then tested in the validation cohort. RESULTS: Of the 251 patients who met the inclusion criteria, 180 and 71 patients were enrolled in the training and validation cohorts, respectively. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that tumor size [Odds Ratio (OR) 1.386; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1070–1.797; P = 0.014]; number of lymph node metastasis (OR 2.535; 95% CI 1.114–5.769; P = 0.027), perineural invasion (OR 3.078; 95% CI 1.147–8.257; P = 0.026), and tumor differentiation (OR 3.552; 95% CI 1.132–11.152; P = 0.030) were independent risk factors for ER. Nomogram based on the above four factors achieved good C-statistics of 0.759 and 0.729 in predicting ER in the training and the validation cohorts, respectively. Time-dependent ROC analysis (timeROC) and decision curve analysis (DCA) revealed that the nomogram provided superior diagnostic capacity and net benefit compared with single variable. CONCLUSIONS: This study developed and validated two web calculators that can predict ER and long-term survival in patients with DPC with high degree of stability and accuracy. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12885-023-11632-5.