Pancreaticoduodenectomy with harmonic focust curved shears for cancer.

Ultrasonically activated shears enable the effective cutting and hemostasis of tissue, and have been shown to offer significant benefits in surgical procedures requiring fine dissection. Harmonic Focus®, one of the latest ultrasonic devices, is a clip-like, light-weight, hand-held instrument with curved thin shears. Experience with Harmonic Focus in pancreatic surgery is limited. We have performed more than 1,000 pancreatic resections with this device. It may well represent a valuable tool for the extensive tissue and vascular dissection that is required in pancreaticoduodenectomy. In particular, Harmonic Focus performs very well in lymph node dissection, which is central in cancer surgery. In this report, we describe pancreaticoduodenectomy for pancreatic-head and periampullary cancer with the Harmonic Focus device.