[Pancreatic pseudocyst. A review of 10 years]

In the hope of finding those patients whose pancreas pseudocyst resolution were spontaneous, we undertook a retrospective review of such cases admitted at the Hospital Central de San Cristobal y Hospital Patrocinio Peñuela Ruiz (from IVSS), with the diagnosis of acute pancreatitis. From 619 patients with pancreatitis, 40 developed a pseudocyst (5.78%). The most frequent ethiology was biliary disease (47.5%) and abdominal pain in 87.5%, the most common symptom. Abdominal ultrasonography was the best diagnostic aid. Spontaneous resolution occur in 24 cases (60%) in juntion with the normalization of seric and urinary amylases values, the size of the cyst in these patients was less than 5 cms. Sixteen patients needed surgery, in 8 of them the seric amylase value remained high and in 3 cases this value was normal but with a cyst size more than five cms. Internal drainage in 11, external in 4 and surgical resection in one. There was no deaths in this review.