The pancreas has exocrine and endocrine functions that are essential to life. A loss of such functions can result due to chronic pancreatitis, cystic fibrosis. Total pancreatectomy is accompanied with significant metabolic abnormalities leading to considerable morbidity. With the availability of modern pancreatic enzyme formulations and improvements in control of diabetes mellitus, the metabolic drawbacks of total pancreatectomy have reduced.
Pancreatic resections play a vital role in the multimodal therapy of pancreatic cancer and remain the only potential hope of a cure. Total pancreatectomy is attempted to improve the survival of patients with pancreatic cancer with the rationale to reduce tumor recurrence rates. Extensive pancreatic cancers may require total pancreatectomy to achieve complete tumor resection. Total pancreatectomy mostly requires a concomitant duodenectomy, and…
