Efficacy of conservative treatment, without necrosectomy, for infected pancreatic necrosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
OBJECTIVE
Conservative treatment (intensive care, a combination of antimicrobial agents, and nutritional support, with or without drainage of the infected fluid) has recently been shown to be effective for patients with infected pancreatic necrosis (IPN), but the data from individual studies are not robust enough to recommend it as the standard of care. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies related to primary conservative management for IPN.


METHODS
We performed a literature search of MEDLINE/PubMed from January 1990 to March 2012 for studies of a priori protocols for primary conservative treatment, without necrosectomy, for consecutive patients with IPN. We analyzed data from 8 studies, comprising 324 patients with IPN who received primary conservative management. We then analyzed an additional 4 studies (comprising 157 patients) that reported the efficacy of percutaneous drainage in nonconsecutive patients with IPN. Outcome measures were the success of conservative management strategy, need for necrosectomy, and mortality.


RESULTS
There was significant heterogeneity in results among the studies. Based on a random effects model, conservative management was successful for 64% of patients (95% confidence interval [CI], 51%-78%); mortality was 12% (95% CI, 6%-18%), and 26% of patients required necrosectomy or additional surgery for complications (95% CI, 15%-37%). A separate analysis of 4 studies that reported outcomes of nonconsecutive patients with IPN following percutaneous drainage had comparable results; 50% had successful outcomes (95% CI, 43%-58%), mortality was 18% (95% CI, 6%-30%), and 38% of patients required surgery (95% CI, 20%-56%).


CONCLUSIONS
Conservative management without necrosectomy is a successful approach for 64% of patients with IPN. This approach has low mortality and prevents surgical necrosectomy.
Department of Gastroenterology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
Venigalla Pratap
VP
Mouli
Department of Biostatistics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
Vishnubhatla
V
Sreenivas
Department of Gastroenterology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India. Electronic address: pkgarg@aiims.ac.in.
Pramod Kumar
PK
Garg
D000038:Abscess / Q000209:etiology / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D000075202:Contraindications; D003646:Debridement; D004322:Drainage / Q000379:methods*; D014943:Global Health; D006801:Humans; D059413:Intraabdominal Infections / Q000209:etiology / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy; D018529:Nutritional Support / Q000379:methods*; D019283:Pancreatitis, Acute Necrotizing / Q000150:complications / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy; D015996:Survival Rate / Q000639:trends; D016896:Treatment Outcome
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents