Neural invasion severity is a strong predictor of local recurrence in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

Background: In pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, neural invasion is being increasingly recognized as an unfavorable predictor of patient outcomes. Neural invasion severity seems to have a stronger clinical impact on patient prognosis than neural invasion status alone. Therefore, this study aims to assess the impact of severity of neural invasion on overall survival and disease-free survival in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

Materials: To assess the impact of intrapancreatic neural invasion severity, tumor specimens resected from patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma between 2007 and 2014 were systematically re-evaluated, and neural invasion severity was determined using the standardized neural invasion severity score.

Results: In our cohort (n = 216), an increased neural invasion severity score was associated with markedly shorter overall survival in pancreatic head ductal adenocarcinoma (neural invasion severity score low: 22.8 months vs neural invasion severity score high: 17.6 months: P = .001). An external European validation cohort confirmed these results and showed significantly better survival of patients with lower neural invasion (20.5 vs 15.4 months, P = .026). The disease-free survival time was also substantially decreased in patients with pancreatic head pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and increased neural invasion severity (neural invasion severity score low: 19.1 months vs neural invasion severity score high: 10.4 months; P = .004). Moreover, the neural invasion severity score was an important independent factor influencing overall survival (hazards ratio 1.024, P = .04) and disease-free survival (hazards ratio 1.03, P = .01) using an adjusted Cox proportional hazards model. Importantly, higher neural invasion severity score leads to significantly more and earlier local recurrence than to distant tumor recurrence.

Conclusion: Neural invasion severity is a powerful independent factor influencing overall survival and local recurrence in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. Therefore, individuals with high neural invasion severity score values should be regarded as a specific subgroup of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma patients and may benefit from more tailored postoperative oncologic therapy.