Introduction
DUCTAL ADENOCARCINOMA, MALIGNANT TUMOURS, SECONDARY
Pancreatic surgery is continuously developing and has undergone major changes over recent decades with the increasing implementation of laparoscopic and robotic techniques. The shift to minimally invasive surgery has been fastest for distal resections, where international guidelines currently recommend the minimally invasive approach over the open approach for benign and low-grade malignant tumours. Regarding ductal adenocarcinoma, to date, there is a lack of RCTs, but, based on the available evidence, the Miami international guidelines concluded that minimally invasive distal pancreatectomy seemed to be safe and oncologically equivalent to the open techniqueDifferences in postoperative quality of life between laparoscopic and open distal pancreatectomy, however, remain a relatively unexplored topic. A Cochrane systematic review from 2016 investigated differences between the open and laparoscopic techniques based on 12 non-randomized studies, none of which included measurements of health-related quality of life. The conclusion was that there was a need for RCTs to be conducted measuring health-related quality of life with at least 2–3 years of follow-upThe LAPOP trial was a randomized trial performed in Linköping between 2015 and 2019, where patients were randomized 1 : 1 to open or laparoscopic distal pancreatectomy. The primary outcome was postoperative length of stay, which was significantly shorter in the laparoscopic group, as was the main secondary outcome of time to functional recoveryThis study reports long-term quality-of-life results of the LAPOP trial up to 2 years after surgery