Comparison of the two histological subtypes of ampullary adenocarcinoma: a retrospective study

This study aimed to compare the intestinal and pancreatobiliary subtypes of ampullary adenocarcinoma in a large patient group due to limited data on survival and risk factors.

A retrospective analysis of the clinical and pathological findings and the survival of 184 patients with ampullary adenocarcinoma who underwent curative operation between 2007 and 2018 was performed.

Pancreatobiliary subtype had a higher prevalence of jaundice before operation than the intestinal subtype (p < 0.05). Pancreatobiliary subtype had a larger tumor size (> 2 mm) (p < 0.01) and poorer differentiation (p < 0.05) than the intestinal subtype. Perineural invasion more frequently occurred in pancreatobiliary subtype than the intestinal subtype (p < 0.01) and pancreatobiliary subtype had a higher prevalence of positive dissected lymph nodes (p < 0.05) with an advanced disease stage (p < 0.01) than the intestinal subtype. Patients of the pancreatobiliary subtype had poorer disease-free and overall survival than patients of the intestinal subtype. No survival benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy was found in either patients of the intestinal subtype or pancreatobiliary subtype. No significant difference was found in any subtypes regarding the recurrent regions.

Pancreatobiliary subtype exhibited a higher recurrence rate and a poorer overall survival rate with more unfavorable pathological characteristics than the intestinal subtype.