Perioperative risk of pancreatic head resection—nomogram-based prediction of severe postoperative complications as a decisional aid for clinical practice

PURPOSE: To develop nomograms for pre- and early-postoperative risk assessment of patients undergoing pancreatic head resection. METHODS: Clinical data from 956 patients were collected in a prospectively maintained database. A test (n = 772) and a validation cohort (n = 184) were randomly generated. Uni- and multi-variate analysis and nomogram construction were performed to predict severe postoperative complications (Clavien-Dindo Grades III–V) in the test cohort. External validation was performed with the validation cohort. RESULTS: We identified ASA score, indication for surgery, body mass index (BMI), preoperative white blood cell (WBC) count, and preoperative alkaline phosphatase as preoperative factors associated with an increased perioperative risk for complications. Additionally to ASA score, BMI, indication for surgery, and the preoperative alkaline phosphatase, the following postoperative parameters were identified as risk factors in the early postoperative setting: the need for intraoperative blood transfusion, operation time, maximum WBC on postoperative day (POD) 1–3, and maximum serum amylase on POD 1–3. Two nomograms were developed on the basis of these risk factors and showed accurate risk estimation for severe postoperative complications (ROC-AUC-values for Grades III–V—preoperative nomogram: 0.673 (95%, CI: 0.626–0.721); postoperative nomogram: 0.734 (95%, CI: 0.691-0.778); each p ≤ 0.001). Validation yielded ROC-AUC-values for Grades III–V—preoperative nomogram of 0.676 (95%, CI: 0.586–0.766) and postoperative nomogram of 0.677 (95%, CI: 0.591–0.762); each p = 0.001. CONCLUSION: Easy-to-use nomograms for risk estimation in the pre- and early-postoperative setting were developed. Accurate risk estimation can support the decisional process, especially for IPMN-patients with an increased perioperative risk. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00423-021-02426-z.