Julius Špičák
The conditio sine qua non for therapeutic success is profound knowledge of all aspects of the disease. High-quality intensive care is of key importance with all endoscopic, imaging, and surgical methods available on a 24-hour basis. Among nutritional measures, enteral nutrition is generally preferred to parenteral one. The promise of a number of agents considered for inhibition therapy, based on animal experiments, failed to become a reality. Antibiotic therapy is one of the mainstays; however, it is only indicated in the necrotizing form of the disease. Widely used and accepted antibiotics imipenem, meropenem and cefoperazone exhibit—in addition to their adequate efficacy against the suspected pathogens—high rates of penetration into pancreatic tissue. With surgical therapy, it is non-invasive necrectomy and drainage in several modifications, which have found acceptance. A cautious approach is preferred, which postpones surgery long beyond the third week of hospitalization while completely ruling unscheduled surgery and revisions. Recently, there have been reports on the benefit of the less invasive endoscopic and mini-invasive methods, particularly for draining pancreatic effusion and well demarcated pancreatic necrosis.