Classification of acute pancreatitis Classificação de gravidade na pancreatite aguda

The Atlanta Classification defines acute pancreatitis as mild or severe. A number of aspects have been discussed in recent years, such as, how many categories of severity should be considered; whether the patient with organ failure is similar to the patient with infected necrosis; the role of transient organ failure; and how to evaluate organ failure. The meeting “Evidence Based Telemedicine Trauma and Acute Care Surgery” (EBT-TACS) conducted a critical review on the topic, selected three main papers that have outlined two major reviews published in recent months. These articles suggest the severity classification in three or four categories, rather than mild or severe only, and discuss what is the best score to assess organ failure. The following recommendations were proposed: (1) Acute pancreatitis should be classified into four categories: mild, moderate, severe and critical, which allows a better stratification of patients, (2) Evaluation of organ failure with a severity score that preferably evaluate directly each organ failure, such as the SOFA and MODS (Marshall). The SOFA seems to have greater accuracy, but the MODS has better applicability due to the