[Pancreaticoduodenectomy--the rutin surgery?]

Pancreaticoduodenectomy with or without pylorus preserving remains the only possibility for cure for the patients with malignant tumors of duodenum, periampullary and cefalopancreatic region, and distal biliary tumors; Pancreaticoduodenectomy is proceeded also for benign tumors of the head of the pancreas (chronic pancreatitis, cysts) but today the standard became preserving duodenum pancreatectomy with good functional results comparing with standard Whipple resection. The last decade had shown a dramatically decrease of the postoperative death for this kind of operations, centers with high volume have been reported a postoperative mortality rate between 1-3%. Our study is a retrospective analysis witch compare the postoperative mortality between 1 January 1990-1 October 2002. The results have shown a decrease of the postoperative mortality from 30.4% (1990-1995) to 9.8% (1995-1999) and 3.6% in the last three years (2000-2002). Also the surgeon volume of operation is closely linked with the postoperative mortality, at the first operations the postoperative mortality rate is 20-33% and after 20 pancreaticoduodenectomy the rate decrease dramatically to 2.6-5.5%. We conclude that pancreatodudenectomy today is routine operation which mortality have decreased at 5% and should be performed in high volume hospitals by surgeons with sufficient experience to minimize the postoperative death.