Objective: To evaluate the effect of different procedures in the treatment of pancreatic pseudocyst.
Method: This retrospective review analyzed the outcome of 114 patients with pancreatic pseudocysts managed in PUMC Hospital from January 1990 to March 2002.
Result: There were 25 patients without intervention, the spontaneous resolution of pseudocysts occurred in 23 of these patients during follow up. Twenty-nine cases underwent CT-guided percutaneous catheter drainage; the effective rate of therapy was 67.85%. Surgical procedures performed in 60 cases and the overall mortality was 5% (3/60). The procedures included external drainage (8 cases) with 1 death (12.5%), excision (13 cases), cyst-duodenostomy (1 cases), cyst-gastrostomy (19 cases) with 7 postoperative gastrointestinal bleeding (36.8%) and 1 death (5.26%), Roux-en-Y cyst-jejunostomy (19 cases) with 3 postoperative gastrointestinal bleeding (15.8%) and 1 death (5.26%).
Conclusions: CT-guided percutaneous catheter drainage has the advantage of minimal invasive and simple technique; it can be as an effective substitute method of traditional open external drainage. Although minimally invasive techniques offer a variety of treatment options, surgical procedures are still indicated for significant number of patients. The incidence of postoperative gastrointestinal bleeding in cyst-gastrostomy was higher than those patients with Roux-en-Y cyst-jejunostomy, but most of them were not difficult to treatment, so cyst-gastrostomy is still a simple and reasonable procedure for selected patients. Excision is a correct choice for cases in which pseudocysts cannot be differentiated from neoplastic cysts.