BACKGROUND: Necrotizing pancreatitis represents the most severe form of presentation from the clinical spectra of acute pancreatitis. Although known for many centuries, many questions remain open about this entity and a great number of articles were published about this matter in the last few years. METHOD: A throughout research in the literature, with special attention to the articles published in the last three years and indexed to the PubMed was performed. The following headings were used: pancreatitis, surgical procedures, necrosis. The initial research rendered about 13 000 articles, and the ones published in the last three years were evaluated. Some older, but remarkable articles were also included given their importance to this matter. CONCLUSION: The treatment of acute pancreatitis involves a great number of questions, among which the most important are the ones related to the use of antibiotics, type of diet employed and the questions related to the manangement of the infected necrosis. There were many radical changes instituted in the last years on all these topics and a constant updating must be necessarily done by the ones involved on the treatment of this disease.
Pancreatitis; Surgical procedures, operative; Necrosis