title: Radical nerve dissection for the carcinoma of head of pancreas: report of 30 cases.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To explore the clinical value of the radical nerve dissection (RND) for the carcinoma of head of pancreas (CHP).
  
  
  METHODS
  The clinical and pathological data of 30 CHP patients who underwent RND in our hospital were retrospectively analyzed, with an attempt to explore the safety and short-term efficacy of this procedure.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Among these 30 patients, the operative time was (351±61) min, the intra-operative blood loss was 350 (range, 300-600) mL, and the grades B and C pancreatic fistula was 23.33%. During the follow-up (range, 2-30 months; median: 17 months), the 1-year survival rate was 63.33% and the 1-year disease-free survival rate was 56.67%. Among the 23 patients (76.66%) with positive extra-pancreatic perineural invasion (PNI), the 1-year casefatality rate was 34.78%, which was not significantly different from that (28.57%) of patients with negative PNI (P=0.760).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results suggested potential advantages of RND in the fields of surgery-associated risk and prognosis compared with the Whipple operation in the treatment of CHP. Due to the low sample size of this study, further well-designed research of large sample size is needed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biliary and Pancreatic Surgery, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China.
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Department of Biliary and Pancreatic Surgery, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China.
authors.forename: Langping
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.affiliation: Department of Biliary and Pancreatic Surgery, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Biliary and Pancreatic Surgery, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China.
authors.forename: Quanbo
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Biliary and Pancreatic Surgery, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China.
authors.forename: Rufu
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Chen
keywords: Pancreatic cancer; pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma; pancreaticoduodenectomy; perineural invasion (PNI); radical nerve dissection (RND)