Postoperative Acute Pancreatitis After Pancreatic Resections—A Narrative Review and a Diagnostic Algorithm

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest tumors, and surgery is, for now, the only potentially curative treatment. However, pancreatic surgery is burdened with severe complications, of which postoperative pancreatic fistula (POPF) is one of the most dangerous. Recent publications show that there is a strong connection between POPF and postoperative acute pancreatitis (POAP). In this review, we present the available literature on PPAP, summarizing the available diagnostic, prophylactic, and treatment tools. We identify POAP as a specific postoperative complication where a lack of unified definitions and treatment guidelines makes both research and clinical decisions more difficult. Based on the available studies, we also propose an algorithm for early POAP detection.