Abstract
Accurate diagnosis of the diseases of the pancreas still offers many difficulties. Although great advances was made in the endoscopic transduodenal pancreaticography, a search for even more accurate diagnostic method still continues. We have made a new approach to this problem by direct endoscopic study of the pancreatic ductal system. We tried to gat access to the pancreatic duct through common bile duct during operative choledochoscopy in 70 cases, but failed in all cases. Thereafter we have changed to direct operative transduodenal pancreaticoscopy through the opening of papilla of Vater. We have done this on experimental animals (dogs) and on 9 clinical cases, with satisfactory results. These experiences including the size of the endoscopes used, the endoscopic findings, the technical details, some suggestions for designing the clinical pancreaticoscope, and the clinical aspect of these cases will be presented.
