Introduction Injuries to the pancreas and duodenum due to blunt abdominal trauma are increasing in incidence with the rise in number and speed of automobiles. These injuries are often difficult to diagnose and even more difficult to treat. The morbidity and mortality of each of these injuries are significant, and the combined injuries are frequently fatal with a slow, painful death. There has been little written on this aspect of pancreatic and duodenal disease. Our study of this problem is composed of 2 parts. The first is clinical and includes a review of the literature and of our experience. The second is experimental and was carried out in the research laboratory. Clinical Five hundred and twenty cases1-12 from the literature were separated into 3 types of injuries: traumatic pancreatitis, traumatic perforation of the duodenum, and combined pancreatic duodenal injuries (Table 1). In 195 cases of traumatic pancreatitis, there was