Clinical Impact of Organ-Preserving Surgery for Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Neoplasms: A Single-Center Experience

OBJECTIVES Organ-preserving surgery (OPS) has been accepted for pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms, particularly for the management of small tumors. This study aimed to analyze the surgical outcome following this treatment at our institute, focusing on the perioperative factors and postoperative locoregional recurrence. METHODS We analyzed 71 consecutive patients with no synchronous liver metastasis. These patients were classified into 1 of 2 groups: the standard operation group (SOG, 41 patients) with prophylactic regional lymph node dissection and the organ-preserving surgery group (OPG, 30 patients). We performed OPS based on size criteria (tumor size <1.5 cm in nonfunctional pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms and <2 cm in insulinoma with no evident bulky lymph node swelling on preoperative imaging). RESULTS The median follow-up periods were 37 months. The OPG included enucleation, partial resection, proximal parenchymal pancreatectomy, central pancreatectomy, spleen-preserving distal pancreatectomy, and Warshaw operation. The SOG included pancreatoduodenectomy and distal pancreatectomy, showing no statistically significant differences between the 2 groups in terms of operation time, hospitalization duration, and postoperative complications. Ten patients showed lymph node metastasis (25%) only in the SOG. There were no locoregional recurrent cases in the OPG. CONCLUSIONS In selected patients, OPS may be effective based on the appropriate tumor size criteria.