Severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) is hard to treat for the abrupt onset, critical condition and complicated pathophysiology. Historically, the treatment strategy of SAP hovered between surgical intervention and conservative treatment. At the turn of the 20(th) century, SAP was reported to be cured by surgical intervention in a series cases, which lead to the dominance of surgical intervention in SAP treatment. Subsequently, SAP was documented to respond to nonoperative therapy. A wave of conservatism emerged, and surgical intervention for SAP was rarely practiced for the next 3 decades. However, surgeons refined the indications and considered new approaches for surgical treatment in 1960s because of the poor outcomes of conservation, and surgical interventions was mainly performed at early stage of SAP. However, a series of prospective studies showed that conservative treatment of patients with sterile pancreatic necrosis is superior to surgical intervention, and that delayed intervention provide improved outcomes in 1990s, which changed the treatment concept of SAP again. The modern treatment concept formed during the progression: organ supportive care dominates in the early stage of the disease, and surgical intervention should be performed at late stage with proper indications. Despite the advances in treatment, the morbidity of SAP is still 5%-20%, which suggests the pancreatic surgeons' exploration in the future.
Disease Progression ; History, 20th Century ; Humans ; Pancreatectomy ; history ; Pancreatitis ; surgery

OBJECTIVETo investigate the indication, timing and methods of surgery for acute necrotizing pancreatitis.

METHODSThere were 5 538 patients with acute pancreatitis (AP) were treated in the Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College from January 2005 to December 2014. Of all AP cases, 2 415 patients with acute necrotizing pancreatitis proved by computed tomography, and 732 patients underwent surgical treatment. Among 732 patients with surgical treatment, 439 (60.0%) were males and two hundreds and ninety-three (40.0%) were females. The median age was 45 years, ranging 20-76 years. Two hundreds and eighty-nine cases were treated with minimally invasive debridement and drainage and 684 cases were treated with open debridement.

RESULTSThe cure rate of minimally invasive operation was 16.6% (48/289). The rest of the 241 patients were treated furtherly with open necrosectomy. Among 684 patients with open surgery, 523 patients (76.5%) were infected, and the median time from the onset of symptom to first open operation was 46 d (range 19-205 d). There were 115 patients need to surgery again because of necrotic tissue residual and the reoperation rate was 16.81% (115/684), 684 patients were performed open surgery on average 1.26 times per person. The main postoperative complications were intra-abdominal hemorrhage (37 cases), upper digestive tract fistula (34 cases), colonic fistula (12 cases), gastrointestinal obstruction (29 cases) and pancreatic fistula (83 cases). The overall incidence of complications were 28.5% (195/684). Forty-nine cases died after surgery and the mortality rate was 6.7% (49/732).

CONCLUSIONRational surgical indications and timing of surgical intervention are the key to improve the efficacy of necrotizing pancreatitis, open debridement is still an effective method for necrotizing pancreatitis.

Adult ; Aged ; Debridement ; Drainage ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Minimally Invasive Surgical Procedures ; Pancreatitis, Acute Necrotizing ; surgery ; Postoperative Complications ; Reoperation ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; Treatment Outcome ; Young Adult