Venous resection for pancreatic cancer, a safe and feasible option? A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: In pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma patients with suspected venous infiltration, a R0 resection is most of the time not possible without venous resection (VR). To investigate this special kind of patients, this meta-analysis was conducted to compare mortality, morbidity and long-term survival of pancreatic resections with (VR+) and without venous resection (VR-).

Methods: A systematic search was performed in Embase, Pubmed and Web of Science. Studies which compared over twenty patients with VR + to VR-for PDAC with ≥1 year follow up were included. Articles including arterial resections were excluded. Statistical analysis was performed with the random effect Mantel-Haenszel test and inversed variance method. Individual patient data was compared with the log-rank test.

Results: Following a review of 6403 papers by title and abstract and 166 by full text, a meta-analysis was conducted of 32 studies describing 2216 VR+ and 5380 VR-. There was significantly more post-pancreatectomy hemorrhage (6.5% vs. 5.6%), R1 resections (36.7% vs. 28.6%), N1 resections (70.3% vs. 66.8%) and tumors were significantly larger (34.6 mm vs. 32.8 mm) in patients with VR+. Of all VR + patients, 64.6% had true pathological venous infiltration. The 90-day mortality, individual patient data for overall survival and pooled multivariate hazard ratio for overall survival were similar.

Conclusion: VR is a safe and feasible option in patients with pancreatic cancer and suspicion of venous involvement, since VR during pancreatic surgery has comparable overall survival and complication rates.