title: A systematic review and quantitative analysis of different therapies for pancreas divisum.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Pancreas divisum is the most common anatomical variation of pancreatic ductal system affecting 5-10% of population. Therapy includes different endoscopic and surgical procedures. The aim of this article was to summarize actual evidence of different treatment.
  
  
  METHODS
  A Medline search was performed to identify all studies, investigating endoscopic or surgical therapy of Pancreas divisum. An individual data simulation model was applied to compare endoscopic and surgical studies.
  
  
  RESULTS
  56 observational studies (31 endoscopic and 25 surgical studies) were included in analyses. Surgery was significantly superior to endoscopic treatment in terms of success rate (72% vs. 62.3), complication rate (23.8% vs. 31.3%) and re-intervention rate (14.4% vs. 28.3%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Surgery may be superior to endoscopy in terms of treatment success and complications. There is no study comparing these two therapies. Consequently, a randomized trial is needed to clarify if endoscopy or surgery is superior in the therapy of pancreas divisum.
authors.affiliation: Department of General, Visceral and Transplantation Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Mohammadreza
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hafezi
authors.affiliation: Department of General, Visceral and Transplantation Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Bartosch
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Mayschak
authors.affiliation: Department of General, Visceral and Transplantation Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Pascal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Probst
authors.affiliation: Department of General, Visceral and Transplantation Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Markus W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Büchler
authors.affiliation: Department of General, Visceral and Transplantation Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Thilo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hackert
authors.affiliation: Department of General, Visceral and Transplantation Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany. Electronic address: arianeb_mehrabi@med.uni-heidelberg.de.
authors.forename: Arianeb
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mehrabi
mesh_terms: D063405:Anatomic Variation; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006801:Humans; D010179:Pancreas / Q000002:abnormalities* / Q000601:surgery*; D016896:Treatment Outcome
keywords: Pancreas divisum; Pancreas/surgery; Surgical and endoscopic treatment