Objective: To investigate the difference in the characteristics between patients with emphysematous pancreatitis (EP) who survived and those who died.Methods: PubMed search was performed to gather EP cases from March 1959 to February 2019. Forty-two articles with 58 EP cases were identified and met the study’s inclusion criteria. The elderly were defined as individuals aged >65 years. Data on patients’ demographics, clinical symptoms, laboratory results, treatments, outcomes, and mortality were collected and analyzed by chi-square test and Student’s t-test. p-Value <.05 (2-tailed) was set as the significance level.Results: Forty-seven men and eleven women aged 61.3 ± 15.9 (mean ± standard deviation) years were included. The elderly accounted for 43.1% (n = 25) of cases. There were 20 mortality cases, and 38 cases survived, with an overall mortality rate of 34.5%. Sex, underlying diseases, etiologies, and laboratory results were not significantly related to mortality. Older age was significantly related to mortality (p = .001). The shock was more commonly seen in the mortality group (100%) than in the survival group (21%) (p < .001). In contrast, fever was less frequent in the mortality group than in the survival group (25 vs. 71%, p = .002).Conclusions: EP patients have a high mortality rate (34.5%). Older age, afebrile status, and presence of shock are associated with high mortality. To improve the survival of this aggressive group, a further prospective investigation involving a larger sample size is necessary.

Xanthogranulomatous pyelonephritis (XGPN) is an unusual suppurative granulomatous reaction to chronic infection. It often occurs in the presence of chronic obstruction from a calculus, stricture or tumor. XGPN clinically presents with abdominal mass, pain, weight loss, anemia and pyuria. Here, we report a case of a 50-year-old woman who had extensive XGPN complicated by a rarely seen unusual devascularization of the transverse and descending colon resulting in ischemic colitis owing to compression by a large mass. The abdominal mass was the largest to be reported to date worldwide. The etiologies, symptoms and signs, complications, diagnosis and treatment are also reviewed in this article.

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