Who benefits from portal vein resection during pancreaticoduodenectomy forpancreatic cancer?

Portal vein resection during pancreaticoduodenectomy has recently experienc ed renewed interest. We describe our results with this procedure over a 20- year period. Among 88 consecutive pancreatectomies for cancer of head of th e pancreas, 14 included en bloc removal of the portal vein. There was no ho spital mortality. Only 21% were found to have histologically confirmed canc er invasion, and the remainder had inflammatory adherence. Two-year surviva l was 15% compared to 34% for patients who did not have portal vein resecti on. There were no 5-year survivors. We discuss our results in light of othe r recent reports.