Hypothermia in acute hemorrhagic pancreatitis. Experimental study and clinical trial.

Abstract

The mortality in acute hemorrhagic pancreatitis remains high despite all therapeutic measures and much experimental work. Theoretically it would seem that any measure tending to suppress the activity of the pancreas would aid in the management of this disease. Wangensteen and his co-workers 1 used intragastric cooling to control massive upper gastrointestinal tract bleeding and noted that the gastric secretory activity was depressed. More recently, Nabseth 2 reported questionable benefits from the use of intragastric cooling in the management of acute hemorrhagic pancreatitis. It occurred to us that pancreatic activity might perhaps be effectively reduced by the induction of total body hypothermia. Accordingly, a laboratory experiment was undertaken. Although experimental pancreatitis in dogs may not be identical with the disease in man, the physiologic defects produced are identical, and treatment which helps one usually helps the other. Experimental Study Method Acute hemorrhagic pancreatitis was surgically induced in 40 mongrel dogs