Current Diagnosis and Treatment of Acute Pancreatitis in Korea: A Nationwide Survey

Acute pancreatitis (AP) is a leading cause of emergency hospitalization. We present the current diagnostic and therapeutic status of AP as revealed by analysis of a large multicenter dataset. The medical records of patients diagnosed with AP between 2018 and 2019 in 12 tertiary medical centers in Korea were retrospectively reviewed. In total, 676 patients were included, of whom 388 (57.4%) were male, and the mean age of all patients was 58.6 years. There were 355 (52.5%), 301 (44.5%), and 20 (3.0%) patients with mild, moderate, and severe AP, respectively, as assessed by the revised Atlanta classification. The most common etiologies of AP were biliary issues (41.6%) and alcohol consumption (24.6%), followed by hypertriglyceridemia (6.8%). The etiology was not identified in 111 (16.4%) patients at the time of initial admission. The overall mortality rate was 3.3%, increasing up to 45.0% among patients with severe AP. Notably, 70.0% (14/20) of patients with severe AP and 81.5% (154/189) of patients with systemic inflammatory response syndrome had received