Take Care of Your Pancreas!

Diagnostic multifocal puncture biopsy (PB) is the next stage of AP diagnosis. The purpose of PB is to verify microbiological and morphological nature of diffuse changes. It is carried out according to diagnostic paracentetic regimens: different needles are applied subsequently while frequency of PB is changed.

According to statistical processing of microbiological and cytologic conclusions, in case of the edematic interstitial form of acute pancreatitis a moderate number of inflammatory elements and a large number of blood elements are often revealed. A large number of blood and inflammatory elements and a moderate quantity of necrotic massess is typical of the necrotic form of AP. The infiltrative necrotic form of AP is characterized by a large number of necrotic masses and inflammatory elements. A large number of necrotic massess and inflammatory elements is also typical of the purulo-necrotic form of AP. The aspirate taken from the abscess cavity usually contains modified blood elements, necrotic masses and inflammatory elements. Exacerbation of the chronic recurrent form of pancreatitis is characterized by inflammatory elements and low-prismatic epithelium with a low degree of proliferation. The cytologic picture of pseudocysts of the pancreas contains inflammatory and blood elements and elements of the cystous cavity.

The majority of patients usually have a negative bacterial inoculation. Microbiological investigation often brings positive results. In most cases bacterial flora constitutes conditional pathogenic enterobacteria of the gram-negative spectrum. Frequency of infection caused by gram-positive agents attained is low (about 25 %).

At present the general approaches to diagnostics and treatment of various forms of acute pancreatitis (AP) are determined. They assume a complex conservative therapy of abortive AP and refusal from early open operations in case of sterile pancreatonecrosis.

Usually purulo-septic complications of pancreatonecrosis indicate that surgical treatment is needed, however the question of the proper sanation method (open surgical operation, beam diapeutics, endoscopy) is debatable. Also the question of expediency of surgical sanation of sterile pancreatonecrosis remains. It is because of the variety of clinicopathologic forms of destructive pancreatitis and disagreements in differentiation between “sterile” and “infected” forms of pancreatonecrosis. The fact is that their clinical and laboratory manifestations are often similar, and traditionall methods of instrumental diagnostics not always allow to determine exactly the development of the infection in the affected zones of the pancreas (P) and/or retroperitoneal tissue.

At present taking into account the probabilistic nature of noninvasive ultrasonic tomography (UST) in verification of pancreatonecrosis, the early and reliable detection of its aseptic and septic forms can be possible only in case of microscopic and microbiological investigation of the material taken by diagnostic puncture under ultrasonic guidance.

We have analyzed lots of literature and come to the conclusion that the question of timely diagnosis of pancreatonecrosis and justified use of drainage and other low-invasive surgical methods at different stages of disease development is very urgent.

Exploratory puncture under ultrasonic guidance is of extensive current use in the diagnosis of aseptic and septic pancreatonecrosis types at the early stage.

Our aim is to determine the role of ultrasonic tomography, including puncture biopsy of the pancreas under ultrasonic guidance, in the diagnosis and treatment of acute destructive pancreatitis.

We held one-day puncture biopsy examinations under ultrasonic guidance of 50 hospitalized patients suspected of destructive pancreatitis. The biopsy examination was multifocal: with the signs of the spare fluid the 4 spot intake was made from at least 2 parts of the pancreas and the omental bursa zone with the needle of the Chiba and Angiomed G 22-21 type. In order to intake cellular material from the pancreas zone without contamination by gastric flora, аn original method of step change of intaking multiplicity, duration and rate was applied.

The analysis for infection of the pancreas and parapancreatic structures disclosed negative results with 44 patients. The results of the microbiological investigation of 10 patients were positive. Bacterial flora was presented by conditionally pathogenic gram-negative enterobacteria (E.coli, K.pneumoniae, B.cepacia, P.mirabilis) in 60 per cent of cases. The cases of infection by gram-positive agents (S.epidermidis, S.saprophyticus) covered 40 per cent. Sensitivity of the method used attained 91,7 per cent, specificity – 86,5 per cent, accuracy – 89,4 per cent.

Thus, the microbiological and cytological analysis of the aspirate taken by fine-needle aspiration under ultrasonic guidance allowed to determine the state of the pancreas objectively, to specify the pathologic process and its evolution, to verify the mode of tissue involvement in case of pancreatonecrosis.