[Acute pancreatitis].

The acute pancreatitis is a disease which is unchangedly characterized by a high lethality. The actual frequency of this disease is difficult to be established, but its increase is probable particularly in the countries with high living standard. Factors of nutrition play an important role in the etiology and in the actual development, and the consumption of alcoholic beverages gains increasingly significance. Despite modern apparative possibilities for making the diagnosis the clinical picture and proved laboratory findings--fermentative lapses, disturbances of the carbohydrate metabolism--are in the first place. At first a conservative treatment is demanded with the preceding aim to prevent shock as well as renal and pulmonary insufficiency. None of the substances, which were experimentally introduced into treatment during recent years, could clearly prove a superiority in contrast to conventional therapeutic principles. Single cases may be saved by timely operation, the problem is here the certain recognition of the borderline to the surgical treatment.