Outcomes following operative vs. non-operative management of blunt traumatic pancreatic injuries: a retrospective multi-institutional study

Traumatic pancreatic injuries are rare, and guidelines specifying management are controversial and difficult to apply in the acute clinical setting. Due to sparse data on these injuries, we carried out a retrospective review to determine outcomes following surgical or non-surgical management of traumatic pancreatic injuries. We hypothesize a higher morbidity and mortality rate in patients treated surgically when compared to patients treated non-surgically. We performed a retrospective review of data from four trauma centers in New York from 1990-2014, comparing patients who had blunt traumatic pancreatic injuries who were managed operatively to those managed non-operatively. We compared continuous variables using the Mann-Whitney test and categorical variables using the chi-square and Fisher's exact tests. Univariate analysis was performed to determine the possible confounding factors associated with mortality in both treatment groups. Twenty nine patients were managed operatively and 32 non-operatively. There was a significant difference between the operative and non-operative groups in median age (37.0 vs. 16.2 years, = 0.016), grade of pancreatic injury (grade I; 30.8 vs. 85.2%, value for all comparisons