Incidence and risk factors for anastomotic stenosis of continuous hepaticojejunostomy after pancreaticoduodenectomy

Background There have been no reports showing the incidence of anastomotic stenosis of continuous hepaticojejunostomy (HJ) and identifying its risk factors for patients who underwent pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD). Method We retrospectively investigated 200 patients whose HJ was established by unified method, single layered continuous suture. HJ stenosis was diagnosed with endoscopic or radiologic examinations. Uni and multivariable unconditional logistic modeling were performed to explore the predictive factors and to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results Sixteen patients (8.0%) were diagnosed as HJ stenosis. Multivariable analysis showed that body mass index (BMI) (OR: 1.24; 95% CI: 1.03-1.51), absence of preoperative biliary stenting (OR: 11.10; 95% CI: 1.22-101.12), operative time (OR: 1.74 per one hour increase; 95% CI: 1.01-2.98), age (OR: 1.58 per 10 years increase; 95% CI: 0.88-2.85), and absence of nodal metastasis (OR: 3.43; 95% CI: 0.90-13.12) correlated with HJ stenosis. Among these, BMI and preoperative biliary stenting were associated with stenosis with a lower P-value than the others (P = 0.026 and 0.033, respectively). Conclusions The incidence of HJ stenosis was 8.0%. Close attention would be needed especially for patients at high risk of HJ stenosis, such as high BMI or absence of preoperative biliary stenting.