Objectives: Although a positive resection margin has been reported to be a strong prognostic factor after resection for pancreatic cancer, several studies indicated that resection status did not independently affect survival. The aim of this study was to examine the influence of resection margin status on survival after extended radical resection for pancreatic head cancer.
Methods: One hundred thirty-eight cases of pancreatoduodenectomy and 38 cases of pylorus-preserving pancreatoduodenectomy for invasive ductal carcinoma of the pancreas were retrospectively analyzed.
Results: The resection margins were negative (R0) in 115 patients (65.3%), microscopically positive (R1) in 38 patients (21.6%), and grossly positive (R2) in 23 patients (13.1%). Patients with R1 resection survived significantly shorter (median survival time [MST], 9.4 months) than R0 resection patients (MST, 15.2 months) but survived longer than R2 resection patients (MST, 6.2 months). By multivariate analysis, R2 resection, together with lymph node metastasis, portal venous system, and extrapancreatic nerve plexus invasions, independently affected the overall survival, but R1 resection was not significantly influential.
Conclusions: R2 resection was an independent predictor of poor prognosis after pancreatoduodenectomy/pylorus-preserving pancreatoduodenectomy, whereas R1 resection did not independently affect the survival.