The authors present an account on six patients with a pleural exudate associated with inflammatory pancreatic disease, treated during the six-year period from 1992-1998. The authors succeeded after two-week conservative treatment which involved complete parenteral nutrition and repeated thoracocenteses that the pleural exudate disappeared in five patients with chronic pancreatitis. In one instance, a female patient with haemorrhagic necrotic pancreatitis, the bilateral exudate disappeared only after surgical removal of the necrotic portions of the pancreas. The authors discuss diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities of treatment of these conditions.