Pancreatectomies for Pediatric Pancreatic Tumors: A Single Institute Experience from 2007 to 2018.

To investigate the safety, feasibility, and complications of pancreatectomies for pediatric pancreatic tumors.The medical records of pancreatectomy patients from January 2007 to January 2018 were retrospectively analyzed for perioperative factors and complications. Patients were divided into pancreatic head (n = 43), body (n = 18) and tail (n = 43) groups.Seventy-two girls and 32 boys (median age 10 years at diagnosis, range: 0-15 years) were enrolled and had solid pseudopapillary tumors (n = 73), pancreatoblastoma (n = 19), neuroendocrine tumors (n = 9), and others. Primary surgical procedures included pylorus-preserving pancreaticoduodenectomy (n = 10) and distal pancreatectomy with splenectomy (n = 4), and organ-sparing resection procedures included duodenum-preserving pancreas head resection (n = 25), middle segmental pancreatic resection (n = 15), spleen-preserving distal pancreatectomy (n = 37) and local enucleation (n = 13), with a median blood loss of 20 cm (range: 10-300 cm). Short-term complications included pancreatic fistula (35.6%), bile leakage (2.9%), intraabdominal infection (21.2%), delayed gastric emptying (23.1%), and postpancreatectomy hemorrhage (5.8%). After a median follow-up of 38 months (range: 3-143 months), 94 patients (90.4%) were alive without tumor recurrence, 2 were alive after tumor recurrence, 1 pancreatoblastoma patient died from tumor recurrence, and 7 were lost to follow-up. Only 14 patients (14/96, 14.6%) had long-term complications at the outpatient follow-up.Surgical resection was the main treatment for pancreatic tumors. Organ-sparing resection procedures led to good long-term results for pediatric pancreatic tumors, even if these procedures could cause a relatively high incidence of short-term complications (especially pancreatic fistula and postpancreatectomy hemorrhage).Level IV.