The clinical benefits of performing staging laparoscopy for pancreatic cancer treatment

Abstract

Background: The indications and benefits derived from staging laparoscopy (SL) for pancreatic cancer (PC) remain controversial.

Methods: This study involved PC patients in whom resection had been considered possible between 2009 and 2020. We classified the patients into before 2014 (training set) and 2014 and later (validation set) groups, as SL was introduced in 2014, in our institution. In the training set, the predictors of non-curative factors were investigated, and reproducibility was confirmed in the validation set. In addition, the outcomes were compared between the datasets.

Results: A total of 802 patients were classified into the training set (n = 241) and validation set (n = 561). In the training set, pancreatic body or tail tumors (odds ratio [OR]: 2.62: P = 0.039), CA19-9 > 88 U/ml (OR: 3.21: P = 0.018) and a tumor diameter >36 mm (OR: 6.07; P < 0.001) were independent predictors of non-curative factors. The increased rate of non-curative factors was confirmed as the number of predictors increased in the validation set. The curative resection (CR) rate was significantly higher in the validation set than in the training set (P = 0.035). Although there was no significant difference in the OS in the not-resected group (P = 0.895), the OS in the CR and non-CR group was significantly better in the validation set than in the training set (CR, P < 0.001; non-CR, P < 0.001).

Conclusion: The findings suggest potential candidates for SL and revealed improved outcomes by the advent of treatment strategies including SL.

Keywords: CA19-9; Pancreatic cancer; Staging laparoscopy; Tumor diameter; Tumor location.