Many people have heard of kidney stones, the gallbladder, but are there stones in the pancreas? Yes, there are. The disease, called pancreatitis, is not common, but in recent years there has been a tendency to increase the number of patients with this problem. With timely diagnosis of the presence of stones in the pancreas lends itself to successful treatment.
If pancreolithiasis is detected, the problem should not be allowed to slide, since the pancreas is an organ that performs a certain secretory function, and failures in its work can lead to serious health problems in general.
Reasons for
What causes the formation of stones? The exact answer to this question in medicine yet, but presumably, it can be:
- inflammatory processes in the gastrointestinal tract: duodenitis and cholecystitis;
- inflammation, cysts, tumors of the abdominal organs, because of which the secret of the pancreas stagnates;
- disorders in metabolism, in particular - the disturbed balance between phosphorus and calcium;
- hormonal failures in the body caused by malfunctioning of the parathyroid glands;
- bad habits: smoking, regular use of alcohol;syphilis. All this provokes the transformation of the pancreatic chemical secretion.
In the first stage of concrement formation there is thickening of pancreatic juice. Once in the ducts of the pancreas, it becomes an insoluble protein mass. In the next stage, calcium salts are deposited in it. This changes the chemical composition of pancreatic juice and further thickens it.
In the third stage, an infection joins the problem, and then symptoms of pancreatitis appear, depending on the location of the stones, the presence of diseases and the degree of inflammation. In accordance with these factors, there are two variants of the disease: 1) when they are in the ducts of the gland;2) when calcium salts are diffusely located in the parenchyma.
This division is conditional, and more often both variants of the disease course are combined. Diagnosis of pancreatitis is complicated by the fact that there is not a single symptom that is characteristic only of stones in the pancreas. The pain and the presence of the underlying disease come to the fore here.
With pancreatitis, pain most often occurs in the epigastric region, but can be given between the shoulder blades and in the lower back. The intensity of pain varies, between the attacks the pain subsides, but with each new attack it increases, nausea and vomiting may occur. During an attack, an increase in the level of glucose in the blood, but this phenomenon is passing. If the disease is a long period, it is possible to develop diabetes.
Symptoms and signs
What symptoms, other than pain, can a doctor suspect of stones in the pancreas? It is:
- skin yellowness;
- increased salivation;
- nausea, vomiting with an admixture of bile;
- droplets of fat in the stool;
- presence in the stool of stones from phosphate and calcium carbonate.
The main diagnostic method is a review radiography, and in complex cases - and computer tomography. Sometimes a stone from the gall bladder migrates along the bile duct, passes into the hole of the main duct of the pancreas and causes the development of pancreatitis. This disease is called cholelithiasis pancreatitis.
Treatment and operation
How to remove stones from the pancreas? Is it necessary to remove them, or can we do with conservative therapy?
Treatment of pancreatitis is a complex and not always successful process, in which a conservative method is usually combined with an operative one. Since the stones are a consequence of the disease of the body, it is necessary to treat, in the first place, this organ.
The choice of tactics for the treatment of concrements depends on their location, the general condition of the patient and the severity of the complications of the disease. Many surgeons believe that surgery to remove stones from the pancreas is not always justified. But statistics show that after it substitution therapy( pancreatin, insulin, etc.) is very effective.
For surgical intervention, the following indications are available:
- long term of the disease, frequent seizures;
- increasing pancreatic insufficiency;
- attacks that can not be stopped;
- marked inflammatory process;
- depletion of the patient.
After the surgery to remove the patient must follow a special diet, the purpose of which is to provide peace for the gland.
Conservative treatment is based on the patient's protective regime, which is prescribed a special diet;replacement and symptomatic therapy, correction of metabolism and elimination of complications of the underlying disease. An obligatory condition for such treatment is the elimination of the underlying disease.
Stone crushing in the pancreas
In the initial stages of the disease, the most common method of removing stones is the use of special drugs that dilute the bile formation and destroy the stones. However, this method is ineffective in some neglected cases of the disease, therefore it is used extremely rarely. Where a more successful method of crushing stones in the pancreas is retrograde cholangiopancreatography, carried out using a special endoscopic tube. This solution is more effective and allows you to remove from the body even the most problematic formations without harm to the human body and remove unpleasant internal pain.
In the most difficult cases, instead of crushing, specialists-gastroenterologists recommend resorting to surgical removal of that part of the gland in which the stones are located or to perform shunting based on the use of special materials that allow creating another way for the normalized flow of bile and enzymes. However, the use of such methods is permissible only after conducting qualitative preliminary diagnosis and consulting with an experienced doctor.