Chronic pancreatitis (CP) is a debilitating disease that can result in chronic abdominal pain, malnutrition, and other related complications. The main aims of treatment are to control symptoms, prevent disease progression, and correct any complications. A multidisciplinary approach involving medical, endoscopic, and surgical therapy is important. Endoscopic therapy plays a specific role in carefully selected patients as primary interventional therapy when medical measures fail or in patients who are not suitable for surgery. Endoscopic therapy is also used as a bridge to surgery or as a means to assess the potential response to pancreatic surgery. This review addresses the role of endoscopic therapy in relief of obstruction of the pancreatic duct (PD) and bile du ct, closure of PD leaks, and drainage of pseudocysts in CP. The role of endoscopic ultrasound-guided celiac plexus block for pain in chronic pancreatitis is also discussed.
Cholangiopancreatography, Endoscopic Retrograde/*methods ; Common Bile Duct ; Endoscopy, Gastrointestinal/methods ; Humans ; Pain/surgery ; Pancreatic Pseudocyst/surgery/therapy ; Pancreatitis, Chronic/*surgery ; Sphincter of Oddi ; Stents

OBJECTIVETo evaluate the effect of different procedures in the treatment of pancreatic pseudocyst.

METHODThis retrospective review analyzed the outcome of 114 patients with pancreatic pseudocysts managed in PUMC Hospital from January 1990 to March 2002.

RESULTThere were 25 patients without intervention, the spontaneous resolution of pseudocysts occurred in 23 of these patients during follow up. Twenty-nine cases underwent CT-guided percutaneous catheter drainage; the effective rate of therapy was 67.85%. Surgical procedures performed in 60 cases and the overall mortality was 5% (3/60). The procedures included external drainage (8 cases) with 1 death (12.5%), excision (13 cases), cyst-duodenostomy (1 cases), cyst-gastrostomy (19 cases) with 7 postoperative gastrointestinal bleeding (36.8%) and 1 death (5.26%), Roux-en-Y cyst-jejunostomy (19 cases) with 3 postoperative gastrointestinal bleeding (15.8%) and 1 death (5.26%).

CONCLUSIONSCT-guided percutaneous catheter drainage has the advantage of minimal invasive and simple technique; it can be as an effective substitute method of traditional open external drainage. Although minimally invasive techniques offer a variety of treatment options, surgical procedures are still indicated for significant number of patients. The incidence of postoperative gastrointestinal bleeding in cyst-gastrostomy was higher than those patients with Roux-en-Y cyst-jejunostomy, but most of them were not difficult to treatment, so cyst-gastrostomy is still a simple and reasonable procedure for selected patients. Excision is a correct choice for cases in which pseudocysts cannot be differentiated from neoplastic cysts.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Anastomosis, Roux-en-Y ; Drainage ; methods ; Endosonography ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Minimally Invasive Surgical Procedures ; Pancreatic Pseudocyst ; surgery ; therapy ; Retrospective Studies ; Treatment Outcome