LAUSR

Background: The management strategy associated with the optimal clinical outcomes for patients with pancreatic trauma remains ambiguous. We sought to determine whether transitioning from initial laparotomy (LAP) to the nonoperative management strategy based on initial percutaneous drainage (PCD) without opening the retroperitoneum would improve clinical outcomes in patients with blunt high-grade pancreatic trauma.Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of pancreatic trauma at a single tertiary referral center. Blunt high-grade pancreatic trauma patients with stable hemodynamics and no diffuse peritonitis were enrolled consecutively in the study. The primary outcome measure was the incidence of severe complications (Clavien-Dindo classification ≥ Ⅲb) for patients who underwent initial LAP vs PCD. To study effect modification by different initial strategies and to adjust for confounding, modified Poisson regression and sensitivity analysis based on propensity score matching and weighting were performed to estimate adjusted relative risks (aRR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).Results: Among 119 patients with blunt grade Ⅲ/Ⅳ pancreatic trauma (107 male [89.9%] and 12 female [10.1%]; mean age, 35.7 [SD, 12.7] years), 29 underwent initial PCD and 90 underwent initial LAP (January 2009 through October 2021). Compared with initial LAP, patients underwent initial PCD were significantly lower risk of severe complicates (9/29 [31.0%] vs 65/90 [72.2%]; aRR, 0.52 [95% CI, 0.30-0.90]). Consistent results are also observed in sensitivity analysis models. The relative risk of severe complications for the PCD group in propensity score matching model was 0.53 (95% CI, 0.28-0.99; P = 0.035), 0.37 (95% CI, 0.18-0.75; P = 0.006) in inverse probability of treatment weighting model, and 0.55 (95% CI, 0.31-0.99; P = 0.046) in overlap weighting model. In addition, the mean number of reinterventions per patient was 1.8 in the PCD group and 2.6 in the LAP group (P = 0.067). Conclusions: For blunt high-grade pancreatic trauma patients with stable hemodynamics and no diffuse peritonitis, initial PCD strategy without open the retroperitoneum has a significantly lower rate of severe complications and does not increase reinterventions compared with initial LAP. Further randomized controlled trials are warranted to validate these results.Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03681041(Sept. 21 2018).