Wrapping the Stump of the Gastroduodenal Artery Using the Ligamentum Teres Hepatis During Laparoscopic Pancreaticoduodenectomy – A Center’s Preliminary Experience

Background The present study aims to assess the preliminary outcomes of the effectiveness of wrapping the ligamentum teres hepatis (LTH) around the gastroduodenal artery stump for the prevention of erosion hemorrhage after laparoscopic pancreaticoduodenectomy (LPD). Methods We reviewed 247 patients who had undergone LPD between January 2016 and April 2019. The patients were divided into two groups according to whether LTH wrapped the stump of the gastroduodenal artery: group A (119 patients) who underwent the LTH wrapping procedure, and group B (128 patients) who did not undergo the procedure. The perioperative data from the two groups were reviewed to assess the effectiveness of the LTH procedure for the prevention of postpancreatectomy hemorrhage (PPH) and other complications. Results No differences were observed in the clinical characteristics between the two groups. The data from 247 patients were acceptable for analysis: 119 patients underwent wrapping, and 128 patients did not. The incidence of clinically relevant pancreatic fistula (8.4% vs 3.9%), biliary fistula (2.5% vs 1.6%), intra-abdominal infection (10.1% vs 3.9%) and delayed gastric emptying (13.4% vs 16.4%) showed no significant difference between group A and group B. The 90-day mortality and 90-day reoperation rates (0.8% vs 0.8% and 5.0% vs 3.1%) were also similar between group A and group B. Furthermore, postpancreatectomy hemorrhage of Grade B and C occurred in 0 patients (0.0%) in the wrapping group, which was significantly less frequent than the occurrence in the nonwrapping group (7 patients; 5.5%, P = 0.02). Conclusions Wrapping the LTH around the gastroduodenal artery stump after LPD does not reduce the incidence of clinically relevant pancreatic fistula, biliary fistula or delayed gastric emptying. However, this procedure has a trend of reducing the rate of PPH of Grade B and C after LPD and is simple to perform.