Centralization of pancreatic cancer treatment within an integrated healthcare system improves overall survival.

Background: Higher-volume centers for pancreatic cancer surgeries have been shown to have improved outcomes such as length of stay. We examined how centralization of pancreatic cancer care within a regional integrated healthcare system improves overall survival.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of 1621 patients treated for pancreatic cancer from February 2010 to December 2018. Care was consolidated into 4 Centers of Excellence (COE) in surgery, medical oncology, and other specialties. Descriptive statistics, bivariate analysis, Chi-square tests, and Kaplan-Meier analysis were performed.

Results: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy use rose from 10% to 31% (p < .001). The median overall survival (OS) improved by 3 months after centralization (p < .001), but this did not reach significance on multivariate analysis.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that in a large integrated healthcare system, centralization improves overall survival and neoadjuvant therapy utilization for pancreatic cancer patients.