Laparoscopic vs. open pancreaticoduodenectomy: a comparative study in elderly people

The purpose of the study is to evaluate whether laparoscopic pancreatoduodenectomy (LPD) is safe and feasible for elderly patients. From December 2015 to January 2019, 142 LPD surgeries and 93 OPD surgeries were performed by the same surgeon in the third affiliated hospital of Soochow University. After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, we retrospectively collected the date of three defined groups: LPD aged < 70 years (group I, 84 patients), LPD aged ≥ 70 years (group II, 56 patients) and OPD aged ≥ 70 years (group III, 28 patients). Baseline characteristics and short-term surgical outcomes of group I and group II, group II and group III were compared. Totally, 168 patients were included in this study; 100 cases were men; 68 cases were women; mean age was 67.9 ± 9.5 years. LPD does not perform as well in elderly as it does in non-elderly patients in terms of intraoperative blood loss (300.0 (200.0–500.0) ml vs. 200.0 (100.0–300.0) ml, p = 0.003), proportion of intraoperative transfusion (17.9% vs. 6.0%, p = 0.026) and time to oral intake (5.0 (4.0–7.0) day vs. 5.0 (3.0–6.0) day, p = 0.036). Operative time, conversion rate, postoperative stay, and proportion of reoperation, Clavien–Dindo classification, 30-day readmission and 90-day mortality were similar in two groups. In elderly patients, when compared with OPD, LPD had the advantage of shorter time to start oral intake (5.0 (4.0–7.0) day vs. 7.0 (5.0–11.3) day, p = 0.005) but the disadvantage of longer operative time (380.0 (306.3–447.5) min vs. 292.5 (255.0–342.5) min, p < 0.001) and higher hospitalization cost (12447.3 (10,189.7–15,340.0) euros vs. 7251.9 (8994.0–11,717.4) euros, p < 0.001). There was no difference between the two groups in terms of postoperative stay, and proportion of reoperation, Clavien–Dindo classification, 30-day readmission and 90-day mortality. LPD is safe and feasible for elderly people, but we need to consider its high cost and long operative time over OPD.