[Pancreas divisum: clinical and therapeutic study in man. Apropos of 87 cases]

In order to evaluate the responsibility of pancreas divisum in the occurrence of pancreatitis, we studied retrospectively 1,808 endoscopic retrograde pancreatograms. Eighty-seven pancreas divisum (4.8 p. 100) were found in 50 males and 37 females, mean age 53.3 +/- 16.8 yrs. Acute pancreatitis was significantly more frequent (p less than 0.001) in this group (19.6 p. 100) than in the patients with fused pancreas (4.3 p. 100). The difference was also significant (p less than 0.01) for idiopathic recurrent acute pancreatitis. Histologic lesions in the dorsal pancreas were in favor of a retentional mechanism of pancreatitis. Sphincterotomy of the accessory papilla, proposed to improve the drainage of the dorsal pancreas, was performed in 11 patients (10 endoscopic, 1 surgical). This treatment, repeated in case of secondary stenosis of the accessory papilla, was successful in 5 out of 8 patients with acute pancreatitis followed up from 12 to 30 months. After reviewing the literature, secondary stenosis of accessory papilla was found significantly less frequently (p less than 0.05) after surgical sphincterotomy or sphincteroplasty (4 out of 46, 8.6 p. 100) than after endoscopic sphincterotomy (6 out of 22, 27.2 p. 100). Treatment, preferentially surgical, should be proposed only to patients with idiopathic recurrent pancreatitis before constitution of chronic non reversible pancreatitis.