Endoscopic ultrasound-guided drainage of early pancreatic necrotic collection: Single-center retrospective study

Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS)-guided drainage is the standard of care for drainage of pancreatic necrosis. Though initially it was mainly used for drainage of only walled-off necrosis, recently, a few studies have also shown its safety in the management of acute necrotic collections. We did a retrospective study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of EUS-guided drainage in the early phase of pancreatitis as compared to interventions in the late phase.

We retrieved baseline disease-related, procedure-related and outcome-related details of patients who underwent EUS-guided drainage of pancreatic necrosis. Patients were divided into early (≤ 28 days from onset of pancreatitis) or delayed (> 28 days) drainage groups. Both groups were compared for disease-related characteristics and outcomes.

Total 101 patients were included in the study. The mean age of included patients was 35.54 ± 13.58 years and 75 were male. Thirty-five patients (34.7%) underwent early drainage. In the early group, a majority of patients underwent intervention due to infected collection (88.6% vs. 18.2%; p < 0.001). More patients in the early group had < 30% wall formation (28.6% vs. 0%; p < 0.001) and > 30% solid debris within the collection (42.9% vs. 15.2%; p = 0.005). Patients in the early group were also more likely to require endoscopic necrosectomy (57.1% vs. 27.3%; p = 0.003) and additional percutaneous drainage (31.4% vs. 12.1%; p = 0.018). Overall, three patients in the early group and one patient in the delayed group had procedure-related complications. Four patients in the early group and one patient in the delayed group succumbed to illness (p = 0.029).

Though delayed interventions remain standard of care in the management of acute pancreatitis, some patients may require early intervention due to infected collection with deteriorating clinical status. Early EUS-guided interventions in such carefully selected patients have in similar clinical outcomes and complication rates compared to delayed intervention. However, such patients are more likely to require additional endoscopic or percutaneous interventions.