HPB Blog, March 2015

The March issue of HPB covers a wide spectrum of HPB disease and is almost certainly due to the international support base of the authors - almost every continent is represented. As the regional HPBA meetings approach it is timely for researchers to reflect on the current content presented in HPB. I would suggest that even the highest quality HPB research would not be out of place amongst current articles published in HPB.

Cai et al set out to answer the important question of whether hepatic abscesses should be percutaneously aspirated or drained. Their robust analysis concluded that the success rates were higher for those patients undergoing percutaneous drainage. A useful conclusion for those surgeons who see this disease entity infrequently. Bell et al provide a systematic review answering the question of “antecolic vs. retrocolic reconstruction of the gastrojejunostomy following a pancreaticoduodenectomy”. The available data come out strongly in favour of an antecolic reconstruction in reducing delayed gastric emptying. Dissecting out the effect of confounding factors such as technical issues and definitions remains problematic when trying to unravel the true effect of anastomotic position. In an article highlighted by co-editor, Mark Callery, Wilson et al provide significant hope for patients debilitated by minimal change chronic pancreatitis. The results of total pancreatectomy with autologous islet cell transplant appear life changing. The importance of achieving optimal outcomes should not be underestimated in this group of predominately young patients. If this is to become the standard of care centres of national excellence will be required. The power of population based registries is demonstrated in a study by Sandblom et al. With a 30 day mortality of 0.15% following cholecystectomy, this paper can act as a useful benchmark for units wishing to analyse local results for patients undergoing cholecystectomy.

Wang et al provide a very informative article on Caroli’s disease and its classification highlighting the different clinicopathological features of the two types. Personally I learnt a lot reading this article and thoroughly recommend it to HPB trainees. And yet there is more!…read on 

Click here for the table of contents

Saxon Connor

Published on

Corporate Partners

Angiodynamics logo
Baxter logo

If you are interested in becoming a Corporate Partner of the IHBPA please contact industry@ihpba.org

Find out more