Economic impact of postoperative pancreatic fistula in pancreatic surgery.

B Background: b Postoperative pancreatic fistula (POPF) is the most important complication after pancreatic surgery and is associated with major morbidity, increased use of resources, and prolonged hospital stay. The occurrence and the grade of POPF were significantly associated with increased treatment costs in all cases and in subgroups of different resections (e.g. mean costs of 15,741.51€ without and of 54,023.20€ with POPF after pancreatoduodenectomy; p< 0.0001). POPF resulted in uncovered costs and was associated with a deficit in total, after different resections, and within single DRGs. [Extracted from the article]