NEW TECHNIQUE FOR EXPOSING PANCREAS

Wanganui Chronicle, 9 November 1949, Page 7

NEW TECHNIQUE FOR EXPOSING PANCREAS

(By a Reuter Correspondent in New Orleans). A new surgical technique by which , the pancreas, one of the body’s most I important organs, can be exposed has been described here by Professor lan I Aird of the University of London in a report to the Internationl Society of I Surgery. | This operation, he said, permits, for |the first time, complete exposure of I all surfaces of the gland, one of the I most difficult organs to explore. I The pancreas, which manufactures ! certain juices important for digestion and also insulin for maintaining a proper control of sugar in the blood, is a gland partly hidden by the stomach. It is covered by involved anatomical structures. The operation, according to Professor Aird, increases the possibility of treating patients suffering with a sometimes fatal condition called “hypoglycemia" — a malady which may be described as the opposite of diabetes, in which the blood does not have enough sugar. It results from the development of minute, nonmalignant tumors called “adenomas" on the part of the pancreas which produces insulin. These tumors cause an over-production of insulin, causing too much sugar to be burned up in the blood. This results in weakness, coma, and sometimes death. Surgeons who heard Professor Aird’s report explained that, the removal of these tumors has sometimes been incomplete because of lack of surgical technique for completely exposing all surfaces of the pancreas. The new technique, they added, is “a distinct contribution to the surgery of the pancreas,” not only for reaching elusive adenomas but also for surgical attack on other diseases of the pancreas, including cancer. The method involves no fancy tricks of surgery, rather, it combines standard technique with a thorough knowledge of the geography of the structures covering the pancreas and results in a complete exposure of the gland that the surgeon can feel all its surfaces.