Management of acute pancreatitis in the “no man’s land”

Abstract

Acute pancreatitis (AP) is an inflammatory disease that can represent a challenge for clinicians, in fact, the early determination of its severity in the first 72 h is crucial for prognosis, recognizing the etiology and carrying out risk stratification to determine a more specific therapy. No accurate early prognostic scores for disease severity have been published, so the severity of AP often cannot be properly defined in the first few hours of the disease. This initial phase represents a "no man's land", in which there is no certainty in the stratification of the damage, prognosis is difficult to establish, therapy must be started promptly, although there is still no effective medical therapy against pancreatic enzymatic activation. Therefore, it is very difficult at this stage to make the correct decisions to achieve the best outcome for the patient with AP. Literature search was carried out using the PubMed database by entering early management of acute pancreatitis [title] or therapy of acute pancreatitis [title] and selecting the most relevant articles for the diagnosis and therapy of acute pancreatitis in clinical practice. This document provides suggestions on managing the key clinical decisions for patients suffering from AP before disease severity is defined, to achieve the best outcomes for patients with AP.