Pancreaticoduodenectomy in patients with an unusual course of the hepatic artery

Variations in hepatic artery anatomy are very common in the population. The aim of this study is to evaluate the rates of individual types of hepatic artery variants in the population of patients undergoing pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD), assess the accuracy of preoperative staging CT imaging to identify hepatic artery variants, and evaluate the impact of the hepatic artery variants on perioperative and postoperative morbidity of PD patients.

A prospective observation study of 147 patients undergoing PD for a pancreatic head pathology at the 1st Department of Surgery, University Hospital Olomouc between 1/2015-12/2018. Preoperative diagnosis of the course of the hepatic artery was made based on staging CT imaging analysis of the abdomen. The result was classified according to the Michels' scale and correlated with the final perioperative finding. Demographic, histopathological and clinicopathological data were included in a prospectively maintained database.

A total of 147 patients were included in the study, 83 (56.5%) males and 64 (43.5%) females, median age 65.0 (37-83) years. A variant course of the hepatic artery was found in 37 (25.2%) patients. The accuracy of preoperative CT imaging in determining the variant was 100%. The presence of a hepatic artery variant was not statistically significant as a factor in terms of postoperative complications - CD I-II (50.0% vs 47.2%), CD III-IV (8.3% vs 13.8%). Similarly, the 30-day (4.2% vs 2.4%) and 90-day mortality rates (4.2% vs 3.3%) were comparable in both groups.

Preoperative diagnosis of vascular variants based on multidetector CT imaging of the abdomen is routinely available and shows high detection accuracy. There was no difference in postoperative morbidity and mortality in patients with and without a variant hepatic artery undergoing PD.