Diseases of the pancreas that can be treated with surgery include cancers of the pancreas, cysts of the pancreas, chronic pancreatitis, acute pancreatitis and pancreatic divisim.

Our Qualifications

Members of the pancreas surgery team have performed several hundred pancreas operations. Henry Ford Hospital exceeds the Leapfrog Group's recommended quality and safety criteria and received their "best in outcomes" rating for pancreatic resections. The team also received Health Grades highest rating of 5-stars for complex gastrointestinal operations and procedures.

Our surgeons perform in the top percentile of all pancreas surgery programs in the country.

The in-hospital 30-day mortality for these procedures is three percent for the most complex operations, such as the Whipple pancreatectomy and nearly 0 percent for the less complex surgeries, including distal pancreatectomy, central pancreatectomy and pancreaticojejunostomy for chronic pancreatitis.

Henry Ford's surgeons operate one of the state's busiest pancreas surgery practices. Several of our surgeons perform laparoscopic distal pancreatectomies.

How Our Surgeons Make A Difference

When a patient is given a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, the survival rates vary based on the type of cancer in the pancreas. Not all cancers of the pancreas are adenocarcinoma; the patient could have other types of masses, including chronic pancreatitis, neuroendocrine tumors, periampullary tumors and cystic lesions. Many types of pancreatic cancer are highly treatable. At Henry Ford, our surgeons work to determine what type of cancer the patient has and then a treatment plan is customized.

At Henry Ford, most patients will first undergo a laparoscopic procedure to determine the type of cancer. This step is important because once the type of cancer is determined, then a proper course of treatment can be mapped out.Traditionally, though if a patient’s tumor is removed through a standard operation with a long incision, a patient is weaker after the surgery for a while and needs time to recover from surgery. Chemotherapy and radiation treatments are delayed by at least six weeks.

Henry Ford surgeons attack the cancer differently with better outcomes.

Here’s how it works:

• A patient undergoes a laparoscopic surgery, where small keyhole size incisions are made, to determine the type of cancer the patient has. Typically, the patient recovers in one to two days.
• If the patient has a type of cancer that would benefit from chemotherapy and radiation, then treatment is begun almost immediately.
• After that course of treatment, the patient then can go in for the full surgery to remove the tumor.

This approach improves the chances of the patient getting all three treatments, surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, when compared to the traditional approach.