Alessandro Codivilla and the first pancreatoduodenectomy

In the field of pancreatic surgery, probably no operation has engendered more historic debate than the origin of the pancreatoduodenectomy, with the misleading and arguably inappropriate eponyms of the "Whipple" or the "Kausch-Whipple" procedure. The question of who performed the first pancreatoduodenectomy remains an intriguing one that has been debated from a nationalistic approach as well as a historic one, but data confirming these fervent arguments have often been missing; thus, we felt the need for clarification of the unrecorded but true story of the first pancreatoduodenectomy.