Association between acute pancreatitis and malignant hypertension with renal failure.

Of 42 patients with malignant hypertension seen in five years in our institutions, seven (17%) had acute pancreatitis. All patients with pancreatitis were black, all had renal failure, and six received dialysis. No particular drug was received by all patients, gallstones were excluded in the majority, and alcoholism was not a factor. Clinical acute pancreatitis persisted for several weeks and five patients died, three of them with pancreatic pseudocyts. Among 259 patients on long-term hemodialysis programs in the same time period, only two additional cases of acute pancreatitis were observed and related to chronic alcoholism. Acute pancreatitis is a frequent complication of malignant hypertension, and when it happens it is severe and commonly fatal.