Pancreatic trauma: an analysis of 148 cases

Abstract

Objective To explore the early diagnosis, option of the surgical procedures, preven-tion and treatment of the complications in patients with pancreatic trauma.Methods All patients with pancreatic trauma during the past 20 years were studied retrospectively in respect of sex, age, cause of injury, grade by AAST, style of operation, therapeutic efficacy, complications and factors for death etc.Statistical analysis was made with Chi-square test.Results In all 148 cases of the present series, 132 underwent surgical interventions including simple suture or external drainage alone, distal pancre-atectomy, distal pancreaticojejunostomy or other internal drainage, diverticularization, Whipple's pro-cedure, and Damage Control Surgery (DCS) etc.Postoperative morbidity was 27.83% with a signifi-cant difference of the incidence of pancreatic fistula between pancreas grade Ⅲ-Ⅴ injuries and grade Ⅰ-Ⅱ(P＜0.01).The mortality rate was 11.49%.The cause of the deaths was mainly massive bleed-ing due to severe associated injuries(76.47%).Among various grades, the difference of the mortality was not significant (P＞0.05).Conclusion To improve the survival rate, it is important to control massive hemorrhage from associated injuries precedes dealing with pancreas trauma.Selection of surgi-cal procedures should be based on whether the main duct is injured.The removing of devitalized tis-sue, adequate external and internal drainage are essential for treatment of pancreatic injuries.Early recognition of pancreatic injury and correct choice of surgical procedures may obviously decrease the in-cidence of postoperative complications. Key words: Wound and injury; Pancreatic injury; Operation; Complication