Does cholecystectomy prior to the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer affect outcome?
Early diagnosis and curative resection are significant predictors of survival in patients with pancreatic cancer. We hypothesize that cholecystectomy within 12 months of pancreatic cancer affects 1-year survival. The Surveillance Epidemiology and End Result (SEER) database linked to Medicare data was used to identify patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer who underwent cholecystectomy 1 to 12 months prior to cancer diagnosis. The SEER database identified 32,569 patients from 1995 to 2002; 415 (1.3%) underwent cholecystectomy prior to cancer diagnosis. Patients who underwent cholecystectomy had a higher proportion of diabetes (40.2% vs 20.5%; P < 0.01), obesity (8.9% vs 3.1%; P < 0.01), jaundice (17.3% vs 0.7%; P < 0.01), cholelithiasis (70.4% vs 4.2%; P < 0.01), choledocholithiasis (0.7% vs 0.0%; P < 0.01), weight loss (17.3% vs 4.7%; P < 0.01), abdominal pain (79.5% vs 22.5%), steatorrhea (0.7% vs 0.0%; P < 0.01), and cholecystitis (32.3% vs 1.7% ; P < 0.0001). After controlling fo
