Slovenská chirurgia 2/2012

Delayed gastric emtying after pancreatic resections

Background: Pancreatic resections are common operations in the specialized centers. With the increase number of pancreatic resections the mortality rate decrease but morbidity rate is still high. Delayed gastric emptying (DGE) is one of the relatively frequent postoperative complications. Patients are not immediately life threatening. On the other hand, DGE can prolong time of hospitalization and worsen postoperative status of patients. Methods: Between January 2007 and December 2011, the prospective study was performed to identify DGE after pancreatic resection, at the I. Department of Surgery University Hospital FN LP in Košice. DGE was defined according to the definition of the International Study Group for Pancreatic Surgery ISGPS (grade A, B and C). The aim of this study was to evaluate the risk factor for presence of DGE. Results: In the present study 131 pancreatic resections were done at the I. Department of Surgery University Hospital FN LP in Košice. There were investigated 37% morbidity (49 patients) and 3% mortality (4 patients). The presence of DGE was in 8 patients (6%), in grade A 6 patients, in grade B 2 patients and no patients in grade C. There were confirm that the presence of other intraabdominal complications is a high risk factor for presence of DGE, p<0.003, especially presence of pancreatic fistula p<0.0001. The type of pancreatic resection as well as type of GIT reconstruction after pancreatic resection had no significant influences to presence of DGE. Conclusion: Despite the claims that DGE is associated with pylorus preserving duodenopancreatectomy, we have found no significant differences between the type of pancreatic resections and the presence of DGE. We have investigated that the presence of other intraabdominal postoperative complications has significant influence to present of DGE, especially pancreatic fistula.

Keywords: pancreatic resections, delayed gastric emptying, postoperative complications, pancreatic fistula.