Early Versus Standard Drainage Removal After Pancreatic Resections: Results of a Prospective Randomized Clinical Trial

Despite a substantial decrease in postoperative mortality, morbidity after pancreatic resections is still high, even at high-volume centers. It has been recently suggested that early removal of postoperative drainages is associated to a decreased rate of intra-abdominal complications, with particular regard to pancreatic fistula. Furthermore, our research group demonstrated that measuring amylase value in drainages (AVD) on postoperative day 1 plays a cardinal role in predicting the developement of abdominal complications, including pancreatic fistula. In particular, patients with an AVD lower than 5000 IU/L in postoperative day 1 were considered at low risk of fistula. Therefore, the investigators designed a randomized prospective trial on early (postoperative day 3) versus standard (postoperative day 5) drainages removal after pancreatic resections in patients at low risk of developing pancreatic fistula (AVD < 5000 IU/L in postoperative day 1) to test whether drainages "per se" influence postoperative complication rates and to eventually validate a fast-track policy in pancreatic resections.