The General and Digestive Surgery Department had already pioneered last year the removal of a pancreatic tumor using an intraoperative venous bypass.
The resection of pancreatic head cancer with an intraoperative venous bypass involves creating a temporary diversion of blood flow before beginning tumour removal. This is done by establishing a bypass between the vein that collects blood from the intestines and the vena cava. This bypass, also known as a shunt, allows blood to continue circulating during the tumour removal process, preventing damage to the intestines and liver.
A few months after a team led by Dr. Juli Busquets, Head of the Surgery Section of the General and Digestive Surgery Department at Bellvitge Hospital and researcher at IDIBELL, successfully performed for the first time in Spain the resection of a pancreatic tumour using an intraoperative venous shunt, they have now operated on two even more complex cases.
These required a double venous and arterial shunt, “because the cancer also affected the hepatic artery,” as explained by Dr. Busquets. The temporary diversion of blood flow is a useful procedure in very specific cases where it is necessary to remove a pancreatic tumour attached to venous or arterial branches that cannot be extracted without cutting them. These are known as locally advanced pancreatic cancers. Until now, most of these cancers were considered inoperable.
Three-dimensional model
Cella Medical Solutions made the pancreatic cancer resection surgeries using shunts to the prior development of advanced three-dimensional surgical planning models. These models accurately reproduce the shape and position of the tumour, as well as the affected organs and vascular structures, allowing surgeons to study the tumour beforehand and determine the best surgical strategy.
Bellvitge University Hospital is a reference centre in pancreatic surgery, particularly in the resection of locally advanced pancreatic tumours (the most complex type of operable tumour due to involvement of nearby blood vessels). Its Hepatobiliopancreatic Surgery Unit, created more than thirty years ago, is a leading centre for these complex procedures. It currently performs the highest volume of pancreatic surgeries in Catalonia, with more than 300 pancreatic resections in the last five years. It has also successfully implemented a robotic pancreatic surgery program, which allows for greater precision and faster patient recovery.
Another example of Bellvitge Hospital’s leading role is its recent recognition as a CSUR (Reference Centre, Service, and Unit) for borderline resectable pancreatic cancer, together with the ICO. This is a national healthcare network specializing in low-prevalence diseases and highly complex procedures.