Outcomes of the Patients Who Were Postoperatively Diagnosed as Malignancy After Laparoscopic Distal Pancreatectomy

Abstract

Laparoscopic distal pancreatectomy (LDP) is a reliable and safe operation for selected patients with benign and low-grade malignant lesions in the body and tail of the pancreas. However, its application for malignant disease has been rarely reported. The aim of this study is to analyze postoperative outcomes of the patients with a diagnosis of benign or borderline malignancy, who were postoperatively diagnosed as malignancy after LDP. From January 2005 to March 2011, LDP was performed on 88 patients, and 11 were subsequently diagnosed as malignancy in postoperative pathologic reports. A retrospective analysis of the clinical outcomes of these 11 patients was conducted. The patients were 4 men and 7 women with a median age of 68 years (range, 29 to 83 y). The postoperative diagnoses were 5 with ductal adenocarcinoma, 3 with invasive intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm, 1 with mucinous cystadenocarcinoma, 1 with neuroendocrine carcinoma, and 1 with pancreas metastasis from a renal cell carcinoma. The median operation time was 180 minutes (range, 80 to 325 min), and the median estimated blood loss was 200 mL (range, 150 to 500 mL). There were no open conversions. Four (36%) patients experienced complications: intra-abdominal fluid collection (2), spleen infarction (1), and enterocutaneous fistula (1). The median postoperative hospital stay was 11 days (range, 6 to 18 d). All the patients were considered to have curative resection (R0), postoperatively. During the median follow-up period of 30 months (range, 3 to 58 mo), 1 patient was found to have liver metastasis, which had been present and misdiagnosed as benign hemangioma on preoperative diagnostic workup. This patient died 1 year after LDP. Another patient was found to have liver metastasis 30 months after LDP. The patient was treated with radiofrequency ablation, and he was still alive 60 months postoperatively. The remaining patients were alive without any recurrent disease. The postoperative outcomes of the patients, who were diagnosed postoperatively as having a malignant pancreatic disease, are acceptable.