Emergency Backwards Whipple for Bleeding: Formidable and Definitive Surgery

During the past decades, the safety of pancreatoduodenectomy has improved, with low mortality and reduced morbidity, particularly in centers with extensive experience. Emergency pancreatoduodenectomy is an uncommon event, for treatment of pancreaticoduodenal trauma, bleeding, or perforation. We herein present a single center experience concerning nontrauma emergency pancreatoduodenectomy for pancreaticoduodenal bleeding.

From January 2007 to December 2015, from a population of 134 PD (70 males and 64 females, mean age 62.2, range 34-82), 5 patients (3.7%; 2 males and 3 females, mean age 64, range 57-70) underwent one-stage emergency pancreatoduodenectomy for uncontrollable nontrauma pancreaticoduodenal bleeding in our tertiary center.

All the 5 patients underwent a backwards Whipple with a morbidity of 60% and a mortality of 20% (1/5). The other 4 patients were recovered and discharged with a median postoperative length of stay of 17 days (range 14-23).

Emergency pancreatoduodenectomy is a definitive life-saving procedure allowing for a rapid control of bleeding when other less invasive approaches (transcatheter arterial embolization or interventional endoscopy) are exhausted, unavailable, or unsafe. It should be particularly considered in neoplastic disease and tailored by surgeons with a high level of experience in pancreatic surgery.