Opinion from the United States

In recent years improved understanding of the clinical pathological correlation and the natural history of acute pancreatitis has resulted from information acquired through computed tomography (CT) with vascular enhancement, CT-guided aspiration for infection assessment, endoscopic retrograde cholan-giopancreatography, ultrasound, visceral angiography and operative findings. Stimulated by this flow of new information, a constantly evolving series of classification systems of acute pancreatitis have been produced.