[Cancer of the head of pancreas--resection vs. palliative surgery]

Pancreatic cancer remains a disease with high mortality. The unspecific symptoms for a long time make the diagnostic difficult. Between 1995-2004, only 85 from 465 patients with this diagnosis, had pancreatic resection. To them, we performed Whipple pancreaticoduodenectomy (60), pylorus preserving pancreaticoduodenectomy (15), pancreatico-duodenectomy with preserving of duodenum (2), pancreaticoduodenectomy with associated resections (5), subtotal pancreatico-duodenectomy (30). The reconstruction after pancreatic resection was pancreatico-jejuno anastomosis (26) and pancreatico-gastro-anastomosis (59). Morbidity was about 34% and the mortality was about 9%.