Treatment of Acute Pancreatitis with Albumin and Whole Blood

Experience with acute pancreatitis over a 10-year period has been analyzed to evaluate the results of current therapy, and particularly the addition of concentrated albumin to customary treatment. During the same period blood volume determinations have shown marked deficits, in patients with pancreatitis, resulting in earlier and more liberal administration of whole blood. The results indicate that albumin together with whole blood has become the only important addition to the treatment of acute pancreatitis in this hospital during the past 10 years.

The administration of concentrated albumin to patients with pancreatitis followed the success reported from this treatment by Kenwell and Wels in February, 1953.¹ They gave 300 to 500 cc. per day, for three to five days, to 11 patients operated on for severe hemorrhagic pancreatitis without a fatality. They attributed the benefit from albumin therapy to the inhibition of trypsin by concentration of the normal plasma trypsin