Surgery or External drain for pseudocyst

[Guest guest]

a,

You wrote, " ... or surgery to tie the leaking tail of my pancreas into the

intestines. Does anyone heard of o surgery like that? Has anyone ever had

it? "

There are two surgical procedures that connect the pancreas to the intestine

so it can drain.

The Puestow procedure, also known as a lateral pancreaticojejunostomy, opens

the main pancreatic duct from the head to the tail of the pancreas. It is

then connected to a loop of small intestine so that the pancreas drains

directly into the intestines.

The Frey Procedure is a modified Puestow. It combines the Puestow with the

removal of part of the head of the pancreas. This operation is done by coring

out the diseased portion of the head of the pancreas to improve drainage of

ducts in the head of the pancreas that would not otherwise be drained doing

the traditional Puestow operation.

The other two surgeries that often get confused with these are:

The Whipple procedure involves removing the head of the pancreas that shares

its blood supply with the first part of the small intestine or duodenum. The

first part of the small intestine is also removed along with the gallbladder

and part of the bile duct. Things are put back together by connecting the

small intestine to the remaining pancreas, remaining bile duct, and the

stomach.

The Beger procedure is a modified Whipple. This involves removing almost all

of the head of the pancreas, saving the duodenum, stomach, and bile duct.

These are the descriptions as defined by MUSC. Today, however, there are

even more 'designer' surgeries. Many times the primary surgery may be slightly

modified without renaming it.

Karyn E. , RN,

Exec. Director, Pancreatitis Association International

5th Annual Symposium on Pancreatitis: September 16 & 17, 2005

[Guest guest]

Karyn,

Thank you for the information , but the four surgeries(Berger Puestow, Frey,

and Whipple) that you described all seem to deal with the head of the

pancreas, as far as I know the problem is in the tail of the pancreas (It is

called a remnant tail?) - I know they don't want to remove the tail of the

pancreas because I am not a diabetic, but I have not found a surgery that

sounds like it provides a method of drainage for the tail of the pancreas.

If you have any insights or I misunderstood something then I would love any

information that you could share

Thank you so, so much

a