Abstract
BackgroundThe goal of our study was to evaluate the current approach in prediction of postoperative major complications after pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD), especially symptomatic pancreatic fistula (POPF), using parameters derived from computed tomography (CT).MethodsPatients after PD were prospectively collected in a database of the local department of surgery and all patients with CT scans available were assessed in this study. CT parameters were measured at the level of the intervertebral disc L3/L4 and consisted of the areas of the visceral adipose tissue (AVAT), the diameters of the pancreatic parenchyma (DPP) and the pancreatic duct (DPD), the areas of ventral abdominal wall muscle (AMVEN), psoas muscle (AMPSO), paraspinal muscle (AMSPI), total muscle (AMTOT), as well as the mean muscle attenuation (MA) and skeletal muscle index (SMI). Mann-Whitney-U Test for two independent samples and binary logistic regression were used for statistical analysis.ResultsOne hundred thirty-nine patients (55 females, 84 males) were included. DPD was 2.9 mm (Range 0.7–10.7) on median and more narrow in patients with complications equal to or greater stadium IIIb (p < 0.04) and severe POPF (p < 0.01). DPP median value was 17 (6.9–37.9) mm and there was no significant difference regarding major complications or POPF. AVAT showed a median value of 127.5 (14.5–473.0) cm2 and was significantly larger in patients with POPF (p < 0.01), but not in cases of major complications (p < 0.06). AMPSO, AMSPI, AMVEN and AMTOT showed no significant differences between major complications and POPF. MA was both lower in groups with major complications (p < 0.01) and POPF (p < 0.01). SMI failed to differentiate between patients with or without major complications or POPF.ConclusionBesides the known factors visceral obesity and narrowness of the pancreatic duct, the mean muscle attenuation can easily be examined on routine preoperative CT scans and seems to be promising parameter to predict postoperative complications and POPF.
Highlights
The goal of our study was to evaluate the current approach in prediction of postoperative major complications after pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD), especially symptomatic pancreatic fistula (POPF), using parameters derived from computed tomography (CT)
Various efforts were undertaken to predict and stratify the risk of major complications and in particular of postoperative pancreatic fistulas (POPF) based on preoperative CT data with partly controversial results: The majority of recent studies evaluated the influence of visceral adipose tissue (VAT), on complications and POPF [3,4,5,6]
The results found by Nishida et al are promising they cannot be directly transferred to a western cohort and they lacked a key parameter of sarcopenic obese, the mean attenuation (MA) of skeletal muscle
Summary
The goal of our study was to evaluate the current approach in prediction of postoperative major complications after pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD), especially symptomatic pancreatic fistula (POPF), using parameters derived from computed tomography (CT). The measures were often not in accordance to the standard procedure, e.g. in regards to the anatomical site of measurement [4, 7], or dependent on expensive segmentation tools [4, 5, 8]. Both facts are limiting a more standardized and clinical use of this parameter. But most publications showed a positive influence of visceral adipose tissue on complications [3,4,5], only few showed contradicting results [7]
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