Elsevier

Surgery

Volume 151, Issue 1, January 2012, Pages 76-83
Surgery

Original Communication
An increase in the number of predictive factors augments the likelihood of malignancy in branch duct intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm of the pancreas

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surg.2011.07.009Get rights and content

Background

International consensus guidelines for the management of intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (IPMNs) of the pancreas provide several factors that can be used to predict which IPMNs will become malignant.The sensitivity of each factor’s predictive accuracy, however, is relatively low, making it difficult to determine the appropriate treatment in individual cases. The aim of this study was to investigate whether increasing the number of predictive factors might augment the sensitivity of the established guidelines to detect malignant IPMNs.

Methods

The medical records of 138 patients with IPMNs resected at our institution were reviewed. Possible malignant predictors were analyzed by univariate and multivariate analysis, and the effects of the number of factors and the predictive score of the pathologic results were examined. The cutoff points for the number of predictors to discriminate between malignant and nonmalignant IPMNs were established by constructing receiver operating characteristic curves.

Results

A predictive analysis could not be carried out for the main duct IPMNs because of the high prevalence of malignancy and the small number of significant predictors associated with them. For malignant branch duct IPMNs, however, we identified 4 predictive factors that helped determine the correct diagnosis as follows: (1) the presence of a cyst ≥30 mm in diameter; (2) the presence of mural nodules; (3) a history of acute pancreatitis; and (4) atypical results of pancreatic juice cytology. An increase in the number of these factors significantly affected the sensitivity to predict malignancy. The area under the curve for the number of predictors for malignant branch duct IPMNs was 0.856, and the sensitivity and specificity were 96% and 71%, respectively, when the cutoff point was set at 2. The predictive scoring system also showed the same values of sensitivity and specificity for the number of factors.

Conclusion

Patients with branch duct IPMNs who have 2 or more of the 4 predictive factors described above should undergo standard pancreatectomy with lymph node dissection, whereas patients who present with 0 or 1 predictive factor can be treated by minimal pancreatectomy without nodal dissection or by careful observation without resection. All patients with main duct IPMNs, therefore, should be treated with resection as suspected malignancies.

Section snippets

Patients and methods

The medical records of 161 patients who underwent pancreatectomy for IPMN in the Department of Surgery and Oncology at Kyushu University Hospital between January 1990 and August 2010 were reviewed retrospectively. A total of 14 patients with synchronous distinct pancreatic ductal carcinomas and 9 without detailed pathology results were excluded; therefore, data from 138 patients were available. Among these patients, data from 126 who had undergone pancreatectomy between January 1990 and June

Results

Of the 138 patients whose data were included in the current study, 39 were diagnosed with main duct IPMNs and 99 with branch duct IPMNs. Of the 138 patients’ pathology reports, 24 showed cancer lesions in the main duct type patients (62%) and 22 documented cancer lesions in the branch duct type patients (22%). The diagnosis of main duct IPMN itself proved to be a significant independent predictive factor for malignancy by the univariate (P < .01) and multivariate (95% confidence interval [CI],

Discussion

Our present study analyzing the relationship between the number of predictive factors for malignant IPMNs and pathology results demonstrated the following findings: (1) a predictive analysis could not be carried out for main duct IPMNs because of the high prevalence of malignancy and the small number of significant predictors; (2) a total of 4 predictive factors for malignant IPMNs, including the presence of a cyst ≥30 mm, the presence of mural nodules, a history of acute pancreatitis, and the

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  • Cited by (53)

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      In 1994, we reported that malignancy of IPMNs could be demonstrated by cytologic examination of pancreatic juice sampled at ERP, when it was called a mucin-producing tumor of the pancreas.20 Although sensitivities for malignancy of pancreatic juice cytology in MD-IPMN varied among studies,12,21,22 positive cytology has been reported to be a predictor of malignancy in IPMN involving the MPD23-25 and in analyses without separating BD-IPMN from MD-IPMN.26,27 In particular, Yamaguchi et al28 reported a high sensitivity of 80% for malignancy in the cytology of MD-IPMNs by collecting materials directly using peroral pancreatoscopy, which was a procedure similar to ours that had been published,29 and a low sensitivity of 42% in BD-IPMNs using a catheter alone.

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      The type and quantity of ICG WFs and HRS had unequal weights and were not cumulative in the prediction of the risk for malignancy or invasiveness in IPMN (26). If multiple risk factors were present, the sensitivity to detect malignant IPMNs increased (26,27). Our study found that the age of patients with malignant IPMNs was older than that of patients with benign IPMNs, suggesting that IPMNs may be slow-growing precancerous lesions.

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      Relative indications included a grow-rate ≥5 mm/year, serum Ca 19.9 ≥ 37 U/ml, MPD dilation between 5 and 9.9 mm, cyst size ≥40 mm, new onset of diabetes mellitus, acute pancreatitis and contrast-enhancing mural nodule <5 mm. This approach considering the number of features has already been suggested by some authors [5,6]; however, the inclusion of the comorbidities in the algorithm is novel. Although the risk of malignancy persists in long-term follow-up [7], the low progression of BD-IPMN [8,9] may justify a conservative approach in older patients or those with significant comorbidities.

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