I'm somewhat dubious of the severe pancreatitis mortality rates-- the issue is that most cases of severe pancreatitis are caused by very severe alcoholism, and by the time the pancreatitis shows up everything else is already failing.
That’s not entirely true. Pancreatitis, especially necrotizing pancreatitis, actually causes the broad systemic organ dysfunction. So even alcoholics with fine organs can end up with liver, lung, heart, kidney, etc complications from a severe bout of pancreatitis. Even basic things like fluid balance and endocrine function can be thrown way off by both the disease and treatment (large amounts of fluid resuscitation). I recently had severe bouts of non-alcoholic pancreatitis, the worst of which ended in a 3 month hospital stay with various periods on ventilators and various organ dysfunction. My imaging and bloodwork from 3 weeks prior were clean (I do them routinely since the pancreatitis is recurring).
