Prophylactic antibiotic therapy in the management of acute pancreatitis

Studies done in the early 1970s came to the conclusion that antibiotic prophylaxis was not useful in the management of acute pancreatitis. However, these studies suffered from the drawback of using antibiotics that had poor penetration into the pancreas. In addition, the design of these trials were faulty. With the advent of new information and the availability of better antibiotics, the picture is changing. Recent studies have suggested that antibiotic prophylaxis is useful in decreasing the incidence of infection in patients with severe pancreatitis. Of the antibiotics that have been tested, imipenem appears to be the most promising.