Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Surg. Oct 27, 2022; 14(10): 1089-1106
Published online Oct 27, 2022. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v14.i10.1089
Drain fluid biomarkers for prediction and diagnosis of clinically relevant postoperative pancreatic fistula: A narrative review
Nadya Rykina-Tameeva, Jaswinder S Samra, Sumit Sahni, Anubhav Mittal
Nadya Rykina-Tameeva, Jaswinder S Samra, Sumit Sahni, Anubhav Mittal, Northern Clinical School, University of Sydney, St Leonards 2065, Australia
Author contributions: Rykina-Tameeva N wrote the paper; Samra JS, Sahni S and Mittal A provided feedback and revised the paper; Sahni S and Mittal A have contributed equally as senior authors.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Sumit Sahni, PhD, Research Fellow, Senior Research Fellow, Northern Clinical School, University of Sydney, Level 8, Kolling Building, Royal North Shore Hospital Campus, St Leonards 2065, Australia. sumit.sahni@sydney.edu.au
Received: June 16, 2022
Peer-review started: June 16, 2022
First decision: September 4, 2022
Revised: September 16, 2022
Accepted: October 14, 2022
Article in press: October 14, 2022
Published online: October 27, 2022
Core Tip

Core Tip: This review demonstrates the potential for drain fluid biomarkers to overcome the limitations of the current diagnostic definition of clinically relevant postoperative pancreatic fistula. Numerous future directions for drain fluid research have been identified, where ideally, new biomarkers would report the accuracy of surgery-specific, risk-stratified cut-offs to clarify their clinical utility. Hence, decisions regarding drain removal and further monitoring can accordingly be made to either expediate or make recovery safer respectively. These improvements will invariably bolster pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma survival outcomes by tapering the high morbidity of pancreatectomies and ensuring better quality of life for patients.