The effect of preoperative biliary stents on outcomes after pancreaticoduodenectomy: A meta-analysis

Whether biliary drainage should be performed before surgery in jaundiced patients is a topic of debate. Published studies on the effect of preoperative biliary drainage show great discrepancies in their conclusions, and the use of different drainage methods is an important factor. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of preoperative biliary stents (PBS) on postoperative outcomes in patients following pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD).

MEDLINE, EMBASE, Science Citation Index Expanded, and the Cochrane database were searched up to October 2019 to identify all published articles related to the topic. A meta-analysis was performed to compare postoperative outcomes in patients with and without PBS. Quality assessment and data extraction from included studies were performed by 2 independent authors. Statistical analysis was performed using RevMan 5.2 software.

Twenty-seven studies involving 10,445 patients were included in the analysis. Biliary drainage was performed in 5769 patients (PBS group), and the remaining 4676 patients underwent PD directly (direct surgery [DS] group). Overall mortality, severe complications, abdominal hemorrhage, bile leakage, intra-abdominal abscess, and pancreatic fistula were not significantly different between the PBS and DS groups. However, overall morbidity, delayed gastric emptying, and wound infection were significantly higher in the PBS group compared to the DS group. Subgroup analysis indicated that the adverse effect of PBS on postoperative complications was more evident with increased stent proportion.

Preoperative biliary stenting increases overall morbidity, delayed gastric emptying, and wound infection rates in patients following PD. Thus, preoperative biliary drainage via stent placement should be avoided in patients waiting for PD.