[Pancreatic pseudocyst: diagnosis, treatment. Apropos of 7 cases]

A pseudocyst of the pancreas (PCP) is a rare affliction in Africa despite widespread malnutrition and abdominal disorders. The authors cover 7 PCP observations on 3 men and 2 women between 18 and 32 years, and 2 boys of 5 and 6 years, in the clinical context of abdominal pain (7/7), an abdominal tumour (7/7) and as a sequence to abdominal contusion (4/7). In 5 cases, echotomography led the etiological investigation of the liquid mass to seek a pancreatic origin. Surgical treatment consisted of 2 termino-lateral cystojejunostomies on a shaped flexure++ and 3 latero-lateral cystojejunostomies (of which one had to be drained externally two times); and a corporeo-caudal pancreatectomy. Supervision of between 1 1/2 and 5 years (1 1/2 years: 3 patients; 2 1/2 years: 2 patients; 5 years: 1 patient; 1 patient lost track of) revealed only one recurrence after internal latero-lateral drainage, and that without clinical repercussions. The authors use this short experiment to study the clinical and paraclinical symptomatology, the etiology and the treatment of PCPs. They stress the role of medical pictures in diagnosis, and of interventional radiology in treatment, but above all the primacy of surgery to treat pseudocysts of the pancreas in Africa.