Resection rate, hospital procedure volume and survival in pancreatic cancer patients in England: Population-based study, 2005-2009

Objective: We assessed the association between population resection rates, hospital procedure volume and death rates in pancreatic cancer patients in England. Design: Patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer were identified from a linked cancer registration and Hospital Episode Statistics dataset. Cox regression analyses were used to assess all-cause mortality according to resection quintile and hospital volume, adjusting for sex, age, deprivation and comorbidity. Results: There were 31,973 pancreatic cancer patients studied, 2580 had surgery. Increasing resection rates were associated with lower mortality among all patients (chi(2)(1df) = 176.18, p(trend) < 0.001), with an unadjusted hazard ratio (HR) of 0.78 95%CI [0.75 to 0.81] in the highest versus the lowest resection quintile. Adjustment changed the estimate slightly (HR 0.82, 95%CI [0.79 to 0.85], (chi(2)(1df) = 99.44, P-trend < 0.001)). Among patients that underwent surgery, higher procedure volume was associated with lower mortality (HR = 0.88 95%CI [0.75-1.03] in hospitals carrying out 30+ versus