The short- and long-term outcomes of radical antegrade modular pancreatosplenectomy for adenocarcinoma of the body and tail of the pancreas

BACKGROUND: Radical antegrade modular pancreatosplenectomy (RAMPS) is a relatively new modification of the standard distal pancreatosplenectomy. In this method, dissection proceeds from right-to-left to achieve negative posterior resection margins. However, short-term and long-term outcomes of RAMPS for pancreatic cancer have not yet been clarified. The aim of this study is to evaluate short-term and long-term outcomes in the patients who have undergone RAMPS. METHODS: Consecutive 49 patients were selected from the retrospective database of the Kanagawa Cancer Center from 2000 to 2014. Data from the operative notes, pathology reports, postoperative data, and outpatient data (recurrence and survival) were entered into the database. RESULTS: All patients were undergone anterior RAMPS. The median operation time was 278 min (range from 140 to 625 mins). The median blood loss in operation was 850 ml (range from 60 to 2790 ml). The overall incidence of morbidity was 51.4 % and the incidence of mortality was 0 %. Forty-one patients (83.7 %) had negative resection margins. The mean number of lymph nodes harvested was 15 and 27 patients had lymph node metastasis. After the median follow-up period was 41.1 months, 1-year and 3-year overall survival rates were 84.1 and 38.6 %, respectively. Median overall survival was 22.6 months. CONCLUSIONS: The present study results suggested that RAMPS procedure might be safe and feasible without an increase in morbidity and morbidity and have survival benefit compared with standard DP.