JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Effect of Early Surgery vs Endoscopy-First Approach on Pain in Patients With Chronic Pancreatitis: The ESCAPE Randomized Clinical Trial.
For patients with painful chronic pancreatitis, surgical treatment is postponed until medical and endoscopic treatment have failed. Observational studies have suggested that earlier surgery could mitigate disease progression, providing better pain control and preserving pancreatic function. ⋯ Among patients with chronic pancreatitis, early surgery compared with an endoscopy-first approach resulted in lower pain scores when integrated over 18 months. However, further research is needed to assess persistence of differences over time and to replicate the study findings.