[Acute pancreatitis secondary to hypertriglyceridemia - a report of two cases].

Acute pancreatitis is a reversible inflammatory process. Hypertriglyceridemia as a cause of acute pancreatitis reaches frequencies of 1.3-11% according to the literature when triglyceride levels reach values over 1,000 mg/dl; nevertheless hypertriglyceridemia is observed in 12-39% of acute pancreatitis cases as an associated factor. The objective of medical treatment is to increase lipoprotein-lipase activity, and to increase chylomicron breakdown thus diminishing serum triglycerides to levels smaller than 500 or even 200 mg/dl (when possible) using a variety of strategies including insulin administration. In the present article, we report two cases of severe pancreatitis induced by hypertriglyceridemia that were managed with insulin infusion; both responded adequately, as measured by a significant reduction of triglyceride levels at 48 hours post-treatment.