Erratum

In the article "Nerve Blocks and Neuroablative Surgery for Chronic Pancreatitis," by Edward L. Bradley III and Jiri Bern, Table 1 and the text referring to it did not appear in its complete form. The referring text, Table 1, and the complete citations for additional references in Table 1 appear below. The collected experience with thoracoscopic splanchnicectomy for chronic pancreatitis is shown in Table 1. The overall rate of subjective improvement in the perceived level of pancreatic pain was 85.5% in a group of 248 patients followed an average of 22.2 months. Improvement was defined as a postoperative decrease in VAS pain, a decrease in narcotic usage, or some combination of both. Interestingly, unilateral splanchnicectomy failed to improve pain in 17 of 46 cases (36.9%), while bilateral splanchnicectomy failed in only 19 of 180 cases (10.6%) (p < .01). Moreover, no criteria could be identified to predict success or failure of unilateral splanchnicectomy. Sixteen of the 17 patients failing unilateral splanchnicectomy underwent subsequent contralateral splanchnicectomy, and 10 of these 16 were improved. These results suggest that if unilateral splanchnicectomy is chosen, a low threshold for staged contralateral splanchnicectomy should be maintained. Based upon our discussion of neuroanatomy, we believe that midline pain is an indication for bilateral splanchnicectomy as the original procedure. Taking all of these collected data into account, it seems fair to conclude that splanchnicectomy can significantly reduce pain for variable periods in some, but not all, patients with chronic pancreatitis.