Whipple procedure

A type of surgery used to treat pancreatic cancer. The head of the pancreas, the duodenum, a portion of the stomach, and other nearby tissues are removed. The Whipple procedure is named for Allen O. Whipple, an American surgeon, 1881-1963 (not George Whipple, the Nobel Prize-winning pathologist, who described Whipple disease).

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Whipple procedure or Whipple's procedure n PANCREATICODUODENECTOMY esp one in which there is complete excision of the pancreas and partial excision of the duodenum

Whipple Allen Oldfather (1881-1963)

American surgeon. Whipple's chief medical positions were with the surgical faculty of Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons and the surgical staff of New York City's Presbyterian Hospital. After his retirement from Columbia University, he reformed the medical training programs at Memorial Hospital in New York City and American University in Beirut, Lebanon. A leader in abdominal, spleen, and gallbladder surgery, he was credited with the creation of the spleen clinic in the surgery department at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, which was responsible for many important advances, including prosthetic materials for aortic grafting and the measurement and treatment of portal hypertension. Whipple is best known for his triad of criteria for hyperinsulinism with tumors of the islets of Langerhans and for his operation for carcinoma of the pancreas, the latter having been introduced in 1938.

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radical pancreatoduodenectomy with removal of the distal third of the stomach, the entire duodenum, and the head of the pancreas, with gastrojejunostomy, choledochojejunostomy, and pancreaticojejunostomy; done for cancers or certain other severe disorders of these structures. Called also Whipple operation.