Complications After Pancreatic Surgery
How to Deal with Them?
Tommaso Giuliani
Department of Surgery, Pancreas Institute of the Verona University Hospital, Verona, Italy
Search for more papers by this authorGiovanni Marchegiani
Department of Surgery, Pancreas Institute of the Verona University Hospital, Verona, Italy
Search for more papers by this authorGiuseppe Malleo
Department of Surgery, Pancreas Institute of the Verona University Hospital, Verona, Italy
Search for more papers by this authorClaudio Bassi
Department of Surgery, Pancreas Institute of the Verona University Hospital, Verona, Italy
Search for more papers by this authorTommaso Giuliani
Department of Surgery, Pancreas Institute of the Verona University Hospital, Verona, Italy
Search for more papers by this authorGiovanni Marchegiani
Department of Surgery, Pancreas Institute of the Verona University Hospital, Verona, Italy
Search for more papers by this authorGiuseppe Malleo
Department of Surgery, Pancreas Institute of the Verona University Hospital, Verona, Italy
Search for more papers by this authorClaudio Bassi
Department of Surgery, Pancreas Institute of the Verona University Hospital, Verona, Italy
Search for more papers by this authorJ. Enrique Domínguez-Muñoz MD, PhD
Director
Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University Hospital of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Search for more papers by this authorSummary
Postoperative complications represent one of the most debated topics in pancreatic surgery. Indeed, the rate of complications following pancreatectomy is among the highest in abdominal surgery, with morbidity ranging between 30 and 60%. The International Study Group of Pancreatic Surgery provides standardized definitions and clinically based classifications for the most common complications after pancreatectomy, including postoperative pancreatic fistula, postpancreatectomy hemorrhage, delayed gastric emptying, bile leakage, and chyle leak. This chapter provides fundamental definitions and classifications of the most frequent surgical complications following pancreatectomy, and also describes the main diagnostic tools and keystones of treatment according to the most recent evidence. A point of discussion when dealing with postoperative complications in pancreatic surgery is centralization. Solid evidence confirms that hospital volume is a significant independent variable of death following pancreatic surgery.
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