Answer to The Wrong Mr. Whipple
Correct answer is C. The incision is technically described as a gridiron incision because the external oblique aponeurosis is incised inferomedially in the direction of the fibers and retracted. The precise location of the McBurney’s incision is approximately 2.5 cm superomedial to the anterior superior iliac spine, the junction of the lateral and middle thirds of a line joining the umbilicus with the ASIS. Charles Heber McBurney was a surgeon of the 19th century who published a treatise on appendicitis in 1891, describing the exact point on the abdomen at which the appendicitis was maximally felt. In contrast, the Whipple procedure , is the eponymous name for a pancreaticoduodenectomy that is performed in patients suffering from pancreatic cancer. The rationale for removing the duodenum as well as the part of the pancreas with the cancer, most frequently the head, is that the blood supply to the duodenum cannot be spared when excising the head of the pancreas.
= Median incision
= Transverse
= Gridiron
= Paramedian
= Pfannenstiel
Answer to this question is based on material presented in lectures 7 of the Abdomen Lecture Series.
