Impact of fast-track concept elements in the classical pancreatic head resection (Kausch-Whipple procedure).

UNLABELLED The aim of the study was to determine statistically significant factors with an impact on the early postoperative surgical outcome. MATERIAL AND METHODS The influence of applied fast-track components on surgical results and early postoperative outcome in 143 consecutive Kausch-Whipple procedure patients was evaluated in a single-center retrospective analysis of a prospective collection of patient-associated pre-, peri- and postoperative data from 1997-2006. RESULTS The in-hospital mortality rate was 2.8% (n=4). Fast-track measures were shown to have no effect on the morbidity rate in the multi-variate analysis. Over the study period, a decrease of intraoperative infusion volume from 14.2 mL/kg body weight/h in the first year to 10.7 mL/kg body weight/h in the last year was accompanied by an increase in patients requiring intraoperative catecholamines, up from 17% to 95%. The administration of ropivacain/sufentanil via thoracic peri-dural catheter injection initiated in 2000 and now considered the leading analgesic method, was used in 95% of the cases in 2006. Early extubation rate rose from 16.6% to 57.9%. CONCLUSIONS Fast-track aspects in the perioperative management have become more important in several surgical procedure even in those with a greater invasiveness such as Kausch-Whipple. However, such techniques used in peri-operative management of Kausch-Whipple pancreatic-head resections had no impact on the morbidity rate. In addition, the low in-hospital mortality rate was particularly attributed to surgical competence.