Endoscopic stent therapy in patients with chronic pancreatitis: A 5-year follow-up study

Figure 1 Protocol of the current study, time points of investigation and examination. Nineteen patients with chronic obstructive pancreatitis underwent endoscopic stent therapy. Endoscopic therapy failed in 2 patients. Seventeen of 19 patients showed clinical benefit and were included to follow-up analysis after completion of stent therapy. During the follow-up, patients were interviewed yearly. Three patients were lost to follow-up. One patient was not available any longer and two patients died.

Figure 2 Illustration of a representative endoscopic retrograde pancreatography procedure. A: A dilated pancreatic duct due to a stenosis in the head and several stones in the main duct (A1). The stenosis was passed through with a 5 F catheter followed by a 8.5 F Sohendra Bougie. Subsequently, a 7 F stent was inserted (A2). After initial endoscopic intervention the patient was completely pain free; B: Four weeks later, the patient was readmitted for control endoscopic retrograde pancreatography (ERP). Stones were partially extracted by a dormia basket (B1), and the 7 F stent was replaced by a 10 F stent (B2); C: Three months later, the patient was still free of complaints. ERP revealed a slightly dilated duct with typical stone formations in the corpus and tail of the pancreas. Stones were extracted.