Safety and Performance of a Synthetic Tissue Sealant in Reducing Fluid Leakage in Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery

Polyganics BV (Groningen, The Netherlands), in close collaboration with University Hospital-Eppendorf (UKE) Hamburg, has developed the Sealing Device for use in hepato-pancreato-bilary (HPB) surgery to reduce leakage of fluids from the site of surgery into the abdominal cavity and as an adjunctive hemostatic device to control minimal to moderate bleeding at the surgical site. The Sealing Device has been challenged in pre-clinical testing (laboratory and in-vivo work), but has not been evaluated for safety and performance in humans. This investigation will be conducted to clinically assess the safety and performance of Sealing Device as a means to reduce bile and pancreatic juice leakage in hepato-pancreato-bilary (HPB) surgery. Secondarily, the control of minimal to moderate bleeding will be assessed. To achieve adequate representation of the primary objective, the study will contain two separate surgical patient groups: Liver and Pancreas. The primary objective of the study is to demonstrate safety and performance in reducing intra- and post-operative leakage (bile and pancreatic juices) by using the Sealing Device in patients undergoing elective hepatic resection or distal pancreatectomy. The study will be conducted as an open-label, single-arm, multicenter study with a 16 months follow up. Up to 80 patients (40 liver and 40 pancreas patients) will be enrolled at up to 7 sites in Europe.