Thirty-one patients with symptomatic pancreatitis and pancreas divisum were treated
prospectively by inserting an endoprosthesis into the dorsal pancreatic duct for drainage.
Pain was a feature characteristic of all 31 patients; of these 92 % had an improvement
in their subjective complaints of pain after sphincterotomy and insertion of a prosthesis
in the minor papilla. During a two-year follow-up period, 84 % (26/31) of the group
showed improvement in all the signs and symptoms associated with their pancreatitis,
and this improvement was sustained in all patients for at least several months. A
group of twenty-six patients subsequently underwent pancreatic surgery for recurrent
symptoms. Those patients who had improved with endoscopic drainage did significantly
better following surgical drainage than those who had shown little or no improvement
with an endoprosthesis. On the basis of the above preliminary results, we recommend
preoperative insertion of an endoprosthesis into the dorsal duct as a therapeutic
predictor of eventual surgical outcome.
Pancreasdivisum - Pancreatitis - Endoprosthesis - Endoscopy - Drainage
