Gastrointestinal decompression refers to fasting in patients with severe pancreatitis, and placing nasogastric tubes to continuously drain stomach contents to prevent acidic stomach contents from entering the duodenum, thereby reducing the exocrine volume of the pancreas and alleviating symptoms such as abdominal pain, flatulence and intestinal paralysis. Mild simple edematous pancreatitis generally only needs to be fasted for 2 ~ 3 days without gastrointestinal decompression treatment. For patients with acute pancreatitis above moderate level, when accompanied by obvious nausea, vomiting and abdominal distension, gastrointestinal decompression is needed to relieve abdominal distension and gastric juice retention.

During gastrointestinal decompression, acidic gastric juice can be sucked out in time, which shortens the residence time of gastric juice in the stomach, reduces the stimulation to pancreatic tissue, greatly reduces the secretion of pancreas, and is beneficial to the recovery of diseases. You can also inject alkaline drugs, such as aluminum hydroxide gel, intermittently through the gastric tube to neutralize gastric acid, thus indirectly inhibiting pancreatic secretion. When continuing gastrointestinal drainage, gastric juice should be exhausted as much as possible. If there is upper gastrointestinal bleeding, it can also be found in time through gastrointestinal suction. Gastrointestinal decompression can be stopped after abdominal pain is basically relieved, and a low-fat liquid diet can be eaten as appropriate.

In recent years, studies have shown that gastrointestinal decompression can only alleviate the vomiting symptoms of patients with intestinal obstruction, but has no specific therapeutic effect on acute pancreatitis, and long-term application may even lead to the recurrence of acute pancreatitis. Therefore, as long as there is no intestinal obstruction and obvious vomiting symptoms, gastrointestinal decompression cannot be used for mild to moderate acute pancreatitis.