Influence of visceral obesity for postoperative pulmonary complications after pancreaticoduodenectomy.

BACKGROUND: We conduct this study to determine whether postoperative complications, including postoperative pulmonary complications (PPCs), are associated with BMI and visceral fat area (VFA) after pancreaticoduodenectomy.

METHODS: A total of 317 patients undergoing pancreaticoduodenectomy were enrolled. VFA was measured using a cross-sectional computed tomography (CT) scan at the level of the umbilicus by FatScan software version 3.0 (N2 systems Inc., Osaka, Japan). Clinicopathological variables, intraoperative outcomes, and postoperative courses were analyzed.

RESULTS: Of all patients, 130 (41.0%) had postoperative complications and PPCs occurred in 14 patients (4.4%). VFA were significantly higher in patients who developed postoperative pancreatic fistula (POPF), PPCs, and mortality than in those patients who did not (P = .0282, P = .0058, and P = .0173, respectively). Multivariate analysis demonstrated that high BMI and high VFA were not independent predictive risk factors for POPF grade B/C and mortality; only high VFA was an independent risk factor influencing PPCs (P = .0390, odds ratio 4.246, 95% confidence interval 1.076-16.759).

CONCLUSIONS: Visceral obesity was the independent risk factor for the incidence of PPCs after pancreaticoduodenectomy. Preoperative VFA measurement using CT scan is a useful tool for the prediction of the development of PPCs compared to BMI calculation.