Postoperative Pancreatic Fistulas: Preventing Severe Complications and Reducing Reoperation and Mortality Rate

Background: Postoperative pancreatic fistula (POPF) is responsible for severe complications and death in patients who underwent pancreatic surgery. The reported success rate of conservative treatment is around 80%. Therefore up to 20% of patients usually need surgical treatment that can be repeated in some. Uncontrolled sepsis and massive hemorrhage are the main causes for mortality in this setting.

Method: Four hundred forty-five patients underwent surgery for pancreatic diseases (January 1993-August 2007); 70 of them developed a POPF. An early aggressive treatment based on interventional radiology was applied to all patients. The drain's track and/or percutaneous approach was used to insert catheters into the peripancreatic fluid collection/s or abscess/es. The position of catheters was verified at least once a week. Surgery was performed in case of failure of conservative approach.

Results: Conservative treatment (approach by drain's track in 49, percutaneous in 16, mixed in 2) was successful in 67 patients. A patient under dialysis had the drains inserted during an emergency surgery for peritonitis 6 days after surgery; a second patient underwent repeated surgical debridement, and a third patient underwent a procedure on the abdominal wall to separate a POPF from a colonic fistula. No patient with diagnosed POPF died.

Conclusions: Early aggressive interventional radiology allowed managing conservatively 95.7% of POPF preventing severe complications and avoiding death.