Retrospective Cohort Study
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World J Gastrointest Surg. Nov 27, 2022; 14(11): 1204-1218
Published online Nov 27, 2022. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v14.i11.1204
Clinical value of extended lymphadenectomy in radical surgery for pancreatic head carcinoma at different T stages
Shao-Cheng Lyu, Han-Xuan Wang, Ze-Ping Liu, Jing Wang, Jin-Can Huang, Qiang He, Ren Lang
Shao-Cheng Lyu, Han-Xuan Wang, Jing Wang, Jin-Can Huang, Qiang He, Ren Lang, Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreaticosplenic Surgery, Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100020, China
Ze-Ping Liu, School of Biomedicine, Bejing City University, Beijing 100084, China
Author contributions: Lyu SC, Wang HX, and Liu ZP are equal coauthors of this article; Lyu SC, Wang HX, Liu ZP, and Wang J contributed to the study design; Lang R and He Q provided administrative support; Lyu SC and Lang R provided study materials and/or patients; Lyu SC, Wang HX, and Huang JC contributed to data collection and assembly; Lyu SC, Wang HX, and Liu ZP contributed to data analysis and interpretation; and all authors contributed to manuscript writing and final approval.
Institutional review board statement: This study complied with the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the Ethics Committee of Beijing Chaoyang Hospital (no. 2020-D.-302). The study design was approved by the appropriate ethics review board. All allogeneic vessels applied during surgery were obtained during organ procurement undertaken by the OPO and were approved for clinical application by our hospital’s Ethics Committee and Committee for Clinical Application of Medical Technology.
Informed consent statement: All study participants or their legal guardians provided informed written consent to the collection of personal and medical data prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ren Lang, MD, Professor, Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreaticosplenic Surgery, Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, Capital Medical University, No. 8 Gongtinan Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020, China. dr_langren123@126.com
Received: July 4, 2022
Peer-review started: July 4, 2022
First decision: July 31, 2022
Revised: August 27, 2022
Accepted: October 12, 2022
Article in press: October 12, 2022
Published online: November 27, 2022
Processing time: 143 Days and 17.9 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Pancreatic head carcinoma (PHC) is a highly malignant tumor, and radical surgery is the only potential curative treatment. However, the long-term postoperative prognosis remains unsatisfactory. As lymph-node metastasis is commonly seen in patients with PHC and has been identified as an independent prognostic factor for postoperative prognosis, extended lymphadenectomy (ELD) has been proposed for the resection of potentially invaded lymph nodes and improvement of the surgical outcome. However, no such improvement in prognosis has been observed. The PHC lymph-node metastasis rate correlates with the T stage, and selective ELD performance for advanced T-stage cases may improve the long-term prognosis.

Research motivation

Given the increases in the lymph-node metastasis rate and sites in patients with PHC, particularly that of advanced T stage, selective ELD performance for patients with advanced T-stage PHC may enable the elimination of more potentially invaded lymph nodes and improvement of the postoperative prognosis.

Research objectives

The objective of this study was to assess the therapeutic effect of ELD in patients with PHC of different T stages.

Research methods

We retrospectively analyzed data from 216 patients diagnosed with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma who underwent surgical treatment at Beijing Chaoyang Hospital between January 2011 and December 2021. The patients were allocated to T1, T2, and T3 groups according to the 8th edition of the American Joint Committee on Cancer’s staging manual and divided into ELD and standard lymphadenectomy (SLD) groups according to the intraoperative extent of lymphadenectomy. Perioperative data and prognoses were compared between the ELD and SLD groups at the T1, T2, and T3 stages, and univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify risk factors.

Research results

The 1-, 2-, and 3-year disease-free survival (DFS) rates in the ELD and SLD groups were 59.9%, 32.1%, and 20.7% and 53.8%, 34.6%, and 16.7%, respectively (P = 0.227); corresponding overall survival (OS) rates were 69.0%, 39.5%, and 26.8% and 55.1%, 32.6%, and 22.1%, respectively (P = 0.073). The 1-, 2-, and 3-year DFS rates for patients with stage-T3 PHC in the ELD and SLD groups were 50.3%, 25.1%, and 15.1% and 22.1%, 1.7%, and 0%, respectively (P = 0.025); corresponding OS rates were 65.3%, 38.1%, and 21.8% and 36.1%, 7.5%, and 0%, respectively (P = 0.005). Multivariate analysis indicated that portal vein invasion and lymphadenectomy extent were risk factors affecting the prognosis of patients with stage-T3 PHC.

Research conclusions

Our research confirmed that ELD can be performed safely for PHC. Although ELD may not improve the overall prognosis of patients with PHC, its selective performance in patients with stage-T3 PHC may improve the long-term postoperative prognosis.

Research perspectives

Several limitations of this study must be recognized. First, it was a single-center retrospective study; our findings need to be verified in multicenter prospective studies. Second, the stage-T3 SLD and ELD groups differed in age, which may have confounded our results; further research with more balanced samples is needed. As ELD increases the retrieved land positive lymph node counts, it may enable more accurate N staging, which may aid decision making about postoperative adjuvant therapy; further research on this possibility is needed.