Acute Pancreatitis

Acute pancreatitis is an acute inflammatory process in the pancreas, with variable involvement of adjacent organs or other organ systems. Depending upon the type of inflammation, acute pancreatitis can be classified into interstitial edematous pancreatitis or necrotizing pancreatitis. The major symptom of acute pancreatitis is abdominal pain which can be defined as acute onset of persistent, severe, epigastric pain often radiating to the back. Since the management of acute pancreatitis varies with the severity of acute pancreatitis, distinguishing the different types of acute pancreatitis at an early stage will allow appropriate treatment. However, it can take several hours or even days for the full blown picture of severe acute pancreatitis to develop. To overcome this difficulty, a number of prognostic scoring systems based on clinical, biochemical, and a combination of clinical and biochemical parameters have been developed to distinguish and predict the severity of acute pancreatitis on admission and at 48 hours of admission.