INTRODUCTION: Acute pancreatitis (AP) is sometimes accompanied by fluid collections and necrosis. These include acute pancreatic fluid collections (PFCs), pancreatic pseudocysts, acute necrotic collections (ANCs), and walled off pancreatic necrosis (WOPN). Indications for drainage of the PFCs include infection, bleeding, luminal obstruction, fistulization, and biliary obstruction. Currently endoscopic drainage is considered standard of care. Cautery enhanced lumen-apposing metal stents (LAMS) is a tool to facilitate potentially safer and easier endoscopic drainage of pancreatic fluid collections. Some endoscopists prefer placing double pigtail stents (DPS) within the LAMS, while others do not. Rationale for DPS within LAMS is to reduce potential adverse events like bleeding, stent occlusion & infections. We perform endoscopic drainage without placing DPS within the LAMS. We propose that placing DPS within LAMS does not decrease adverse events associated with LAMS placement. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective study of patients with cautery enhanced LAMS placed for pseudocyst or WOPN between January 1, 2017 and November 30, 2019. We evaluated the efficacy and safety of LAMS. Adverse events were categorized into two: early- occurring within 48 hours and late occurring after 48 hours. RESULTS: This study had 18 patients with the following characteristics: 10 males and 8 females; 8 Caucasians, 9 African Americans and 1 Hispanic; and the average age was 48 yrs. The clinical findings showed a similar etiology of pancreatitis for gallstones and alcohol. All LAMS deployed were 15mm in diameter. The average size of collection drained was 114.11 mm with an average duration of stent placement of approx. 52 days. Overall, 8 patients required necrosectomy. Of those that required a necrosectomy, 2 patients required 1 session, and 6 required multiple sessions. In all patients, only one early adverse event was found: Stent mal-deployment. None of the patients required re-intervention as there was complete/near complete resolution of PFC at 3 months follow-up. CONCLUSION: Successful resolution of pancreatic fluid collections may be achieved endoscopically. Our data suggest that deployment of LAMS reduces the rate of adverse events and reinterventions. The additional deployment of double pigtail stents through LAMS, as suggested by the Shamah et al. 2018 paper may not be needed. Further prospective, randomized study in a larger sample size is warranted to validate these results.Table 1
Read full abstract