• Mehdi Ouaissi, Catherine Hubert, Robert Verhelst, Parla Astarci, Christine Sempoux, Anne Jouret-Mourin, Anderson Loundou, Jean-François Gigot, and Multidisciplary HPB Group of Center of Cancer.
• Division of Hepato-Biliary and Pancreatic Surgery, Department of Abdominal Surgery and Transplantation, Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc, Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL), Hippocrate Avenue 10, 1200, Brussels, Belgium.
• World J Surg. 2010 Nov 1;34(11):2648-61.

ObjectiveCombined vascular and pancreatic resection improves long-term survival of patients suffering from ductal adenocarcinoma of the pancreatic head. This study was designed to compare the results of surgical resection in patients with pancreatic cancer with or without vascular resection. Late 10-year disease-free survival was considered as an indicator of patients' disease cure.MethodsA total of 149 consecutive patients have undergone pancreatoduodenectomy without vascular resection (group 1: 82 patients), with isolated venous resection (group B: 67 patients), or with arterial and/or venous resection (group C: 8 patients).ResultsThe duration of surgery and blood losses were significantly more important in groups B and C compared with group A; however, postoperative morbidity and mortality rates were similar. R1 resection was significantly more frequent in groups B (42%) and C (50%) compared with group A (13%; p = 0.0002), but there were more advanced tumors in these groups, as demonstrated by a lower Karnowsky index, higher Ca 19-9 plasmatic level, greater tumor size, more advanced stage in the AJCC classification, and more tumor location in the uncinate process of the pancreas. Ten-year overall and disease-free survivals were significantly better in group A (19 and 20%) compared with group B (2.8 and 0%) and group C (0% and 0%). Multivariate analysis proved vascular resection and metastatic nodal status as being independent predictive factors of disease-free survival.ConclusionsVascular resection combined to pancreatoduodenectomy for pancreatic cancer increases local resectability without increasing mortality and morbidity rates but does not improve patients' disease cure rate.

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