Pancreatic surgery.

Over the past year considerable progress has been made in the field of pancreatic surgery. Innovative diagnostic techniques continue to improve the preoperative staging of pancreatic cancer. For patients with cancer and biliary obstruction, preoperative biliary stenting appears to increase the incidence of wound infection after pancreatoduodenectomy but has no effect on other perioperative complications. New information about the molecular biology of pancreatic cancer may begin to influence the surgical approach to the disease. More cases of intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms are being diagnosed and studied. The impact of adjuvant chemotherapy and chemoradiation on survival has been more clearly defined in a large, randomized trial. In patients with sterile acute necrotizing pancreatitis, conservative nonsurgical management has continued to produce favorable results. For chronic pancreatitis, surgery appears to diminish both chronic pain and recurrent episodes of acute pain.