Laparoscopic vs Endoscopic Management of Pancreatic Pseudocysts: A Scoping Review

Pancreatic pseudocyst (PPC) and walled-off necrosis (WON) develop as late complications of acute pancreatitis that have been historically managed surgically. With the advancement in endoscopic equipment and the evolution of endoscopic surgery, the management of PPC has evolved considerably in recent years from surgical drainage to transmural endoscopic drainage. Till the end of the 20th century, a limited number of surgeons performed laparoscopic drainage of PPCs. Due to the steep learning curve needed for performing advanced laparoscopic suturing, a majority of studies conducted during this period have compared open surgical drainage with endoscopy. The efficacy of these modalities has largely been evaluated using retrospective studies and a few meta-analyses particularly due to the low-volume caseload of individual centres. Also, these studies include PPC and WON together in data analysis despite WON being a distinct entity. There are limited prospective well-designed clinical trials comparing endoscopic and laparoscopic management of pure PPCs. There is also a lack of specific recommendations for the management of PPCs. Considerable overlap of indications between these two modalities exists. The efficacy of endoscopic transmural drainage as an index intervention when compared to laparoscopy has not been proven in the research literature. Previous studies have not considered multiple endoscopic interventions within a four-week period of index intervention as a failure. We reviewed the literature using appropriate MeSH terms on the PubMed search engine for articles comparing laparoscopic and endoscopic transmural management of PPCs according to our inclusion and exclusion criteria. Seven articles were identified for inclusion in the qualitative synthesis. This scoping review was conducted to answer some pertinent unanswered questions, identify gaps in knowledge regarding the laparoscopic vs endoscopic management of PPCs, and guide further research.