Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Oncol. Sep 24, 2022; 13(9): 738-747
Published online Sep 24, 2022. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v13.i9.738
Whipple’s pancreaticoduodenectomy at a resource-poor, low-volume center in Trinidad and Tobago
Shamir O Cawich, Dexter A Thomas, Neil W Pearce, Vijay Naraynsingh
Shamir O Cawich, Dexter A Thomas, Vijay Naraynsingh, Department of Surgery, Port of Spain General Hospital, Port of Spain 000000, Trinidad and Tobago
Neil W Pearce, Department of Surgery, Southampton General Hospital National Health Services Trust, Southampton SO16 6YD, United Kingdom
Author contributions: Cawich SO, Naraynsingh V, Thomas D and Pearce NW designed and coordinated the study; Pearce NW, Thomas D and Naraynsingh V acquired and analyzed data; Cawich SO, Naraynsingh V, Thomas D and Pearce NW interpreted the data; Cawich SO, Naraynsingh V, Thomas D and Pearce NW wrote the manuscript; all authors approved the final version of the article.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the University of the West Indies Institutional Review Board (CREC-SA.1623/06/2022).
Informed consent statement: This was a retrospective audit of written hospital records and so informed consent was waived by the institutional review board.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Data sharing statement: All data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request at tt.liver.surgery@gmail.com.
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: Shamir O Cawich, FRCS, Full Professor, Department of Surgery, Port of Spain General Hospital, Charlotte Street Port of Spain, Port of Spain 000000, Trinidad and Tobago. tt.liver.surgery@gmail.com
Received: May 18, 2022
Peer-review started: May 18, 2022
First decision: July 14, 2022
Revised: July 22, 2022
Accepted: August 17, 2022
Article in press: August 17, 2022
Published online: September 24, 2022
Core Tip

Core Tip: Although conventional recommendations suggest that Whipple’s procedures should only be performed in high-volume centers, this is not practical in many nations. This paper adds to the growing body of evidence that volume alone should not be used as a marker of quality for patients requiring Whipple’s procedures. Low volume centers in resource poor nations can achieve good short-term outcomes. This is largely due to the process of continuous, adaptive learning by the entire hospital.