Internal Drainage of Infected Pancreatic Necrosis: A Fail-Safe Alternative to Percutaneous Catheter Drainage

Introduction Necrosectomy and external drainage has been the traditional surgical treatment for infected pancreatic necrosis (IPN) following acute pancreatitis. It is a highly invasive and high risk procedure in an already compromised individual and demands multiple trips to the operating room for subsequent debridement. Recent evidence suggests that minimally invasive procedures, including surgical video-assisted retroperitoneal debridement and percutaneous catheter drainage (PCD) can often “take the heat out of the fire” and thereby delay or even avoid surgery, but these procedures sometimes fail and surgical intervention needs to be undertaken. In order to avoid multiple surgical procedures we decided to drain the IPN internally into the stomach.