Advantages of mesenteric approach to pancreatoduodenectomy for pancreatic head cancer with invasion of great vessels

Aim – to compare standard and mesenteric approaches to surgical treatment of patients with pancreatic head cancer invading the portal and/or superior mesenteric veins and to evaluate their advantages.

Material and methods. Surgical treatment of 192 patients with pancreatic head cancer with portal and/or superior mesenteric vein invasion was performed. In 43 (22.4%) cases, pancreatoduodenal resection was performed through the mesenteric approach, in the remaining 149 (77.3%) patients, the standard approach to surgical treatment was used.

Results. The median duration of operations with the mesenteric approach was 290 min., with the standard one, 300 min., the median blood loss was 1120 ml and 1800 ml, respectively, p=0.0002. No statistically significant differences in the long-term treatment results were found for mesenteric and standard approaches: progression of pancreatic head adenocarcinoma was diagnosed in 48.8% and 49%, respectively; the median overall survival was 24.5 months and 22.3 months; the median progression-free survival was 21.3 months and 22.1 months, respectively. Analysis of long-term treatment results depending on the type of approach and the degree of radicality of surgical intervention showed that the incidence of local relapse with standard access in non-radically operated patients is significantly higher (40.6% vs 7.7%, p = 0.001).

Conclusion. The advantages of the mesenteric approach over the standard approach to surgical treatment of patients with pancreatic head cancer with portal and/or superior mesenteric vein invasion are as follows: 1) it makes it possible to assess the prevalence and operability of the tumor as early as at the beginning of the surgical intervention; 2) it ensures a significantly higher frequency of operations in the R0 volume; 3) it ensures significantly less blood loss during surgery; 4) after circular resection of the main veins it provides more opportunities to perform end-to-end plastic surgery, which reduces the risk of thrombosis due to the formation of only one anastomosis and reduces the time of clamping of the main veins, reducing the risk of liver and intestinal ischemia.