ABSTRACT
The clinical patterns of acute pancreatitis vary from mild disease to severe necrotizing pancreatitis with local and systemic complications. Classifying acute pancreatitis by the Atlanta criteria, (1) approximately 75% of the patients have a mild disease, with a mortality rate below 1% (2). Mortality increases to up to 20% if the disease progresses to severe necrotizing pancreatitis (3-6). These patients often develop nutritional deficiencies during the prolonged and complicated course of the disease. This can have fatal consequences, especially in patients already malnourished at the time of the initial attack (7).
