Surgical treatment and complications of treating pancreatic tumor.
UNLABELLED Pancreatic tumor is one with the worst prognosis of all cancers, and the tenth most frequent cancer in Europe, making the 3% of all cancers affecting both sexes. Most patients seek treatment when the disease is in its advanced stage and the level for possible resectability is low. Late presentation of the disease is responsible for the short survival period of 6 months and a five-year survival of 0.4 to 5% of patients. At the Clinic for Surgery in Tuzla during period from January 1st 1996, to January 1st 2011, a total of 127 resection surgeries were performed due to malignant tumors. The goal of this study was to show that adequate assessment of operability, proper surgical strategy and modern techniques of creating anastomoses reduces morbidity and mortality, results in fewer postoperative complications and contributes to better surgical results. In our study sample the most common place of tumor location was the head of pancreas, in 69 (59.7%) patients. Men develop this type of cancer more often than women in the ratio of 2:1, while the median age of patients was 62 years. We faced postoperative complications in 37 (29.1%) patients, pancreatic fistula being the most prevalent complication, occurring in 16 (12.6%) patients. Overall early and late postoperative mortality was observed in 12 (9.8%) patients. CONCLUSION Patients with chronic and hereditary pancreatitis are at a higher risk for developing pancreatic cancer and should be screened for the purpose of early diagnosis. The staging of pancreatic cancer has improved, with the accuracy of 85-90%. Postoperative complications, morbidity, and mortality are significantly reduced (p < 0.05) if the standardized operational procedure is applied and if modern techniques are used to create pancreaticojejunal anastomosis as the anastomosis carrying the highest risk.