Endoscopic Management of Pancreatic Pseudocysts

With its high technical and clinical success rates, endoscopic drainage has earned its place as first-line treatment for pancreatic pseudocysts.

Endoscopic therapy has become the first line of treatment for pancreatic pseudocysts (PCs). Three different endoscopic approaches are used: conventional transmural drainage (CTMD), conventional transpapillary drainage (CTPD), and endoscopic ultrasound-guided transmural drainage (EUS-GTD). Now, researchers have developed a treatment algorithm for PCs that assigns one of the three approaches, based on the characteristics of the PC as determined by computed tomography and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography:

Patients without portal hypertension and with pseudocysts that bulge into the digestive wall at endoscopy receive CTMD.
Patients with pseudocysts that communicate with the pancreatic duct system, that do not display luminal bulgin…

Reviewing Author

Stuart Sherman, MD