Delayed post-pancreatectomy hemorrhage and bleeding recurrence after percutaneous endovascular treatment: risk factors from a bi-centric study of 307 consecutive patients

Purpose Delayed post-pancreatectomy hemorrhage (PPH) is still one of the most dreaded complications after pancreatic surgery. Its management is now focused on percutaneous endovascular treatments (PETs). Methods Between 2013 and 2019, 307 patients underwent pancreatic resection. The first endpoint of this study was to determine predictive factors of delayed PPH. The second endpoint was to describe the management of intra-abdominal abscesses (IAA). The third endpoint was to identify risk factors of bleeding recurrence after PET. Patients were divided into two cohorts: A retrospective analysis was performed (“cohort 1,” “learning set”) to highlight predictive factors of delayed PPH. Then, we validated it on a prospective maintained cohort, analyzed retrospectively (“cohort 2,” “validation set”). Second and third endpoints studies were made on the entire cohort. Results In cohort 1, including 180 patients, 24 experienced delayed PPH. Multivariate analysis revealed that POPF diagnosis on postoperative day (POD) 3 ( p =0.004) and IAA ( p =0.001) were independent predictive factors of delayed PPH. In cohort 2, association of POPF diagnosis on POD 3 and IAA was strongly associated with delayed PPH (area under the curve [AUC] 0.80; 95% confidence interval [CI] [0.59–0.94]; p =0.003). Concerning our second endpoint, delayed PPH occurred less frequently in patients who underwent postoperative drainage procedure than in patients without IAA drainage ( p =0.002). Concerning our third endpoint, a higher body mass index (BMI) ( p =0.027), occurrence of postoperative IAA ( p =0.030), and undrained IAA ( p =0.011) were associated with bleeding recurrence after the first PET procedure. Conclusion POPF diagnosis on POD 3 and intra-abdominal abscesses are independent predictive factors of delayed PPH. Therefore, patients presenting an insufficiently drained POPF leading to intra-abdominal abscess after pancreatic surgery should be considered as a high-risk situation of delayed PPH. High BMI, occurrence of postoperative IAA, and undrained IAA were associated with recurrence of bleeding after PET.