Efficacy of postoperative adjuvant therapy for invasive intraductal papillary mucinous carcinoma

Abstract

An international consensus guideline for the management of patients with intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (IPMN) classified IPMNs pathologically into low-grade dysplasia, high-grade dysplasia, and invasive intraductal papillary mucinous carcinoma (IPMC). Once an IPMN has invasive components, lymph node metastases can occur and recurrence is often found even after complete surgical resection. In this event, the survival of patients with invasive IPMC is worse than that of patients with noninvasive IPMN. Therefore, lymphadenectomy during operation is essential for invasive IPMC to improve survival, similar to common pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. With regard to postoperative adjuvant therapy, some studies reported its effectiveness for patients with invasive IPMC to prolong the survival, while other studies did not. It is controversial whether adjuvant therapy should be administered to patients with invasive IPMC. This paper will introduce a project of the Japan Pancreas Society to evaluate the efficacy of postoperative adjuvant therapy for patients with invasive IPMC.