I am on a roll today without sleep . . .

[Guest guest]

Well, fellow travelers, here's a study that looked at pancreatic

patients post-op; 8 years later to be exact. I will give you MY

summary at the end:

Long-term follow-up results of surgery for chronic pancreatitis.

Olah A, Kelemen D, Horvath OP, Belagyi T.

Department of Surgery, Petz Aladar Teaching Hospital of Semmelweis

University, Gyor, Hungary.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Based on a mean follow-up period of 86 months, the

long-term results of 87 drainage and resection operations performed

for chronic pancreatitis between 1990-94 were evaluated. METHODOLOGY:

To evaluate the results, two questionnaires were filled out by the

patients. The first was related to the pancreatitis and the long-term

complications, the second was a Gastrointestinal Quality of Life

Index questionnaire. Data of deceased patients were collected with

the help of general practitioners. RESULTS: Based on the analysis of

disease-related and quality of life questionnaire forms only 34% of

the investigated patients could be classified as a group showing good

results. There was a high incidence of long-term mortality (25%).

Eighty-three percent of the deceased patients (18 patients) died

after the seventh postoperative year. The most threatened group seems

to be the alcoholic and insulin-dependent diabetic one. The

combination of the two pathologies was the cause of death in a third

of the cases. Insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus developed in 13

patients after an average of 3.9 years following surgery, mainly as a

consequence of the irreversible and progressive nature of disease.

The rate of disability was 51%. No significant difference could be

demonstrated between the resected and the decompressed group

according to either disability or late mortality rate. CONCLUSIONS:

Based on these results, the authors wish to emphasize that in chronic

pancreatitis the short-term follow-up results may be deceptive, and

that the real outcome of the surgical treatment can only be expected

five years following surgery.

My Summary: Ooops, I think we killed too many hamsters this year!

LOL. No, this is the real one: It actually takes 5 years to know how

your panc surgery will turn out.

For me, it was only a year because I was doing somewhat well for a

while and than tanked. What was the experience of others here in this

group? Maybe we can tally all of the results to see what WE can find

out on this very subject.

Hey, here's what I would like to do. Everyone who has had surgery or

aspiration of pseudocysts, let me know how YOU turned out and also

let me know when your surgery was. Please title your email: SURGERY

RESULTS and send them to me at: anyse1@...

I will try to see what I can do with the data if there is enough.

Anyse