Several types of cancers have been reported to metastasize to the pancreas. Lung cancer with isolated pancreatic metastasis is extremely rare. In selected patients, surgery is advocated. The aim of our study is to carry out a systematic review of the articles published on the surgical treatment of these patients. Our goal was to realize a systematic review in accordance with PRISMA guidelines. We conducted a literature search using MEDLINE (PubMed), EMBASE and SCOPUS databases to identify all studies published from 1967 to 2020 reporting patients with pancreatic resection for metastatic lung cancer to the pancreas. The data of the articles finally selected were represented in tables. The median age of included patients was calculated as well as the median survival. The proportion of patients was calculated according to sex, type of surgery performed and location of the lesion. 3150 articles were included at the beginning. After the screening process, 20 articles were selected for the systematic review. These articles reported data on 23 patients. Presentation was mainly metachronous, with a disease-free interval of 10 (0-54) months. Of these patients, 43.5% were symptomatic at diagnosis and 34.8% had extrapancreatic metastases. Mean overall survival was 17.65 (± 14.56) months. Based in this review, there is limited evidence on the treatment due to the small number of published articles, most of them being case report. Surgical resection of pancreatic metastases from lung cancer could be a safe procedure and it could improve survival rates in selected patients.
Keywords: Isolated pancreatic metastasis; Lung cancer metastases; Pancreatectomy; Surgical resection.
© 2022. Italian Society of Surgery (SIC).