Pancreatic surgery in Japan: historical review.

The advent of surgical techniques for the management of pancreatic cancer has had a long and varied history in the Western culture. The development of current surgical techniques and treatment modalities is based on (rooted in) techniques developed over time. Although the first written anecdotes of pancreatic resection--primarily from the 1600s through the late 1800s--did not alter the mortality of pancreatic cancer, they did pave the way for advances in surgical techniques that subsequently attained lower morbidity and mortality rates. Although there were some meager attempts at pancreatic resection in Japanese institutions before and during World War II, it was not until after the war, and particularly after the mid-1950s, that pancreatic surgery developed tremendously. The development of more radical approaches to pancreatic surgery developed tremendously. The development of more radical approaches to pancreatic resection as well as other surgical developments resulted in lower morbidity and mortality rates.