[Immediate and late results of surgical treatment for chronic pancreatitis. Apropos of 127 operated cases].

From 1960 to 1987, 127 patients (105 males and 22 females, mean age: 45.9 years) underwent surgical treatment for CP. The aim of this study was to assess the results of surgical treatment intentionally oriented towards conservative surgical procedures (CPS). Ninety-one patients benefited from either pancreato-intestinal bypasses (84 cases) sometimes associated with other intestinal bypasses and/or transhiatal splanchnicotomy (THS) or isolated biliary (5 cases) or gastric (2 cases) bypasses. Thirty-one resections were carried out: 26 pancreatoduodenal resections (PDR) associated 3 times with TSH and 5 distal pancreatectomies. Other types of conservative treatment were performed in 5 cases. There were 5 post-operative deaths (3.9%): 1 after resection (6.6%) and 4 after CSP (p greater than 0.7). Postoperative complications occurred twice after resections (6.6%) and in 13 cases (16.2%) after CSP (p greater than 0.3). A further surgical procedure was required in 3 cases after pancreatic resection (3/25.12%) and in 14 cases after CSP (14/71, 19.7%) (p greater than 0.5). In the late postoperative course 15 deaths occurred but only 6 of them were directly related to the course of the pancreatitis. Five and 10 year overall survival probability after surgical treatment was respectively 81.5% and 64.7%. This probability was 70.4 and 60.4% after resections and 87.1% and 68.8% after CSP (p = 0.29). After CSP 75% of good functional results were observed between 1 and 4 years and 60% afterwards. Although non statistically significant these results suggest that: CSP and resections have the same operative risk, late reoperations are more frequent after CSP, the chance of late survival rate is better after CSP than after resection.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)