A pancreaticoduodenectomy, Whipple procedure, or Kausch-Whipple procedure, is a major surgical operation involving the pancreas, duodenum, and other organs. This operation is performed to treat cancerous tumours on the head of the pancreas, malignant tumors involving thecommon bile duct, duodenal papilla, or duodenum near the pancreas, and also some cases of pancreatitis with or without a definitive cause. This procedure was originally described by Alessandro Codivilla, an Italian surgeon, in 1898.
The first resection for a periampullary cancer was performed by the German surgeon Walther Kausch in 1909 and described by Kausch in 1912. It is often called Whipple's procedure or the Whipple procedure, after the American surgeon Allen Whipple who devised an improved version of the surgery in 1935 and subsequently came up with multiple refinements to his technique. Johns Hopkins Medicine…
