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Surgical Treatment of Pancreatic Fistulas: Rationale, Timing, and Techniques

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Pancreatic Fistulas

Abstract

Pancreatic fistulas are defined as a continuing leakage of pancreatic secretions into an abnormal site, whether to the skin, into a body cavity, or into the gastrointestinal tract via a pathologic communication. Their complications may range in severity from minimal to fatal [1–3] and occur as a consequence of inflammatory or traumatic injury to the pancreas [1,3, 4]. Included in the latter category is trauma from a wide variety of interventional diagnostic and surgical procedures upon the pancreas [1, 5, 6]. Fistulas may occur in up to 70% of cases after such interventions [7, 8], with most reports in the 7%–20% range [1, 9–13]. They occur more frequently in males [1,14] and after alcoholic pancreatitis [1,15, 16], but these observations are probably dependent upon the prevalence of alcohol-induced disease in the populations served by reporting institutions.

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© 1992 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Schmidt, J., Rattner, D.W., Warshaw, A.L. (1992). Surgical Treatment of Pancreatic Fistulas: Rationale, Timing, and Techniques. In: Pederzoli, P., Bassi, C., Vesentini, S. (eds) Pancreatic Fistulas. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-77418-8_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-77418-8_17

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-55338-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-77418-8

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