thesis
Severe acute pancreatitis and selective decontamination (Results of a Illulticentel' contl'olled clinical trial)
- Publication date
- 4 December 1998
- Publisher
- From a mild self-limiting disease, development of multiple organ failure and
frequently septic complications towards a fulminant course resistant to any type
of treatment, acute pancreatitis is a disorder that has numerous causes, an obscure
pathogenesis and an often unpredictable outcome.
Following anecdotal reports'-3, acute pancreatitis first became widely recognized
as a clinical and pathologic condition through an exhaustive review and systematic
analysis of the course of the disease of 53 patients, reported more than a century
ago by Reginald Fitz, Professor of Pathological Anatomy at the Harvard
University'. In contrast to Senn', a Chicago surgeon, he initially considered early
operative intervention ineffective and hazardous in these patients. Here the debate
between medical and surgical therapy for acute pancreatitis originates and has
continued ever since.