Systematic review and meta-analysis of prophylactic abdominal drainage after pancreatic resection.

Aim: To investigate whether prophylactic abdominal drainage is necessary after pancreatic resection.

Methods: PubMed, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library were systematically searched to obtain relevant articles published before January 2014. Publications were retrieved if they met the selection criteria. The outcomes of interest included: mortality, morbidity, postoperative pancreatic fistula (POPF), clinically relevant pancreatic fistula (CR-PF), abdominal abscess, reoperation rate, the rate of interventional radiology drainage, and the length of hospital stay. Subgroup analyses were also performed for pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD) and for distal pancreatectomy. Begg's funnel plot and the Egger regression test were employed to assess potential publication bias.

Results: Nine eligible studies involving a total of 2794 patients were identified and included in this meta-analysis. Of the included patients, 1373 received prophylactic abdominal drainage. A fixed-effects model meta-analysis showed that placement of prophylactic drainage did not have beneficial effects on clinical outcomes, including morbidity, POPF, CR-PF, reoperation, interventional radiology drainage, and length of hospital stay (Ps > 0.05). In addition, prophylactic drainage did not significantly increase the risk of abdominal abscess. Overall analysis showed that omitting prophylactic abdominal drainage resulted in higher mortality after pancreatectomy (OR = 1.56; 95%CI: 0.93-2.92). Subgroup analysis of PD showed similar results to those in the overall analysis. Elimination of prophylactic abdominal drainage after PD led to a significant increase in mortality (OR = 2.39; 95%CI: 1.22-4.69; P = 0.01).

Conclusion: Prophylactic abdominal drainage after pancreatic resection is still necessary, though more evidence from randomized controlled trials assessing prophylactic drainage after PD and distal pancreatectomy are needed.