Surgical outcome of pancreaticoduodenectomy: high volume center or multidisciplinary management?

More recently mortality and morbidity related to PD has dramatically dropped, due to the new mini-invasive technology as well as to a trend leading towards centralization. Our hospital can be considered a high-volume center for pancreatic surgery; nevertheless, each of its 5 surgical units taken alone has a low/medium-volume activity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the results of PD in a low-medium volume unit with multidisciplinary support in a major high-volume hospital.

A retrospective review was conducted: from January 2002 up to December 2013, 62 Whipple procedures were performed in our surgical unit.

As to the operative outcome, the average number of days spent in ICU was of 4.28, the average days ventilated were 1.5 and the mean hospital stay was of 16 days. The in-hospital mortality was 3.2%, the late mortality was 1.6% and the perioperative morbidity was 27.4%.

The effect of the surgeon volume on post-operative mortality is still controversial. As suggested by Gooiker, the centralization initiatives for pancreatic surgery should be based not only on volume quality criteria, but also on services and processes offered by a major hospital. The results of our study are similar to the ones of Italian and international studies performed in high-volume centers. According to our experience, we feel we can confirm that positive results in pancreatic surgery may be obtained also in low-medium volume units if there is a multidisciplinary support and services common to a major high volume hospital.