Are Internal or External Pancreatic Duct Stents the Preferred Choice for Patients Undergoing Pancreaticoduodenectomy? A Meta-Analysis

Table 1

The characteristics of all the included studies.

Author	Year	Country	Study type	Surgery	Group	Patients number	Male/female	Age, y	Anastomosis technique	Study quality; RCT (Jadad system); Retro (NOS system)
Jang [8]	2016	Korea	RCT	PD/PPPD	EXS	164	103/61	62 (46.3–76.0)	ES-DM-PJ	5
					INS	164	87/77	63 (38.5–77.0)	ES-DM-PJ
Wang [9]	2014	China	RCT	PD	EXS	110	59/51	52/58 (≥65/<65)	DM-PJ	5
					INS	159	54/55	56/53 (≥65/<65)	IN-PJ
Tani [10]	2010	Japan	RCT	PD	EXS	50	28/22	70 (44–87)	ES-DM-PJ	5
					INS	50	27/23	68 (25–84)	ES-DM-PJ
Kamoda [11]	2008	Japan	RCT	PD/PPPD	EXS	22	8/14	9/13 (≥65/<65)	ES-DM-PJ	5
					INS	21	7/14	14/7 (≥65/<65)	EE-IN-PJ

RCT: randomized controlled trial; PD/PPPD: pancreaticoduodenectomy; EXS: external stents; INS: internal stents; ES-DM-PJ: end-to-side, duct-to-mucosa pancreaticojejunostomy; DM-PJ: duct-to-mucosa pancreaticojejunostomy; IN-PJ: invagination pancreaticojejunostomy; EE-IN-PJ: end-to-end, invagination pancreaticojejunostomy.