Early organ dysfunction in acute pancreatitis usually resolves and in itself has no significant influence on mortality. In contrast, worsening organ dysfunction was associated with death in more than half of the patients (11 of 20); it is this group of patients who should be classified as having severe acute pancreatitis.

These results suggest that scope remains for considerable improvement in the early management of acute pancreatitis. There is an urgent need to improve the early recognition of severe pancreatitis coupled to a willingness on behalf of clinicians to transfer these patients at an early stage to a centre with high-dependency and intensive care facilities supervised by a multidisciplinary team with expertise in the endoscopic, radiological and surgical management of these patients.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is an aggressive malignancy associated with <5% 5-year survival, in which standard chemotherapeutics have limited benefit. The disease is associated with significant intra- and peritumoral inflammation and failure of protective immunosurveillance. Indeed, inflammatory signals are implicated in both tumour initiation and tumour progression. The major pathways regulating PDAC-associated inflammation are now being explored. Activation of leukocytes, and upregulation of cytokine and chemokine signalling pathways, both have been shown to modulate PDAC progression. Therefore, targeting inflammatory pathways may be of benefit as part of a multi-target approach to PDAC therapy. This review explores the pathways known to modulate inflammation at different stages of tumour development, drawing conclusions on their potential as therapeutic targets in PDAC.

Readmissions and complications following cholecystectomy are common and associated with patient and disease characteristics.

Emergency cholecystectomy is less costly and more effective than delayed cholecystectomy. This approach is likely to be beneficial to patients in terms of improved health outcomes and to the healthcare provider owing to the reduced costs.