Pancreatitis is an uncommon cause of abdominal pain, emesis, and shock in children although it usually has a different etiologic basis than in the adult. Serum amylase should be measured whenever a child sustains blunt abdominal trauma or has abdominal pain of undetermined origin.Seventeen children with pancreatitis have been treated at the UCLA Hospital during the past ten years. Six children with nephrosis or lupus erythematosus were believed to have “steroid-induced” pancreatitis which was fatal in four of the patients. Idiopathic pancreatitis was seen in four children, two of whom died. Operations should be avoided in these often critically ill patients.Children with post-traumatic pancreatitis and pseudocyst are usually treated most effectively by external tube drainage providing the proximal pancreatic duct is not obstructed.