Pancreatic microcirculatory disturbance plays an important role in the pathogenesis of acute pancreatitis, and it involves a series of changes including vasoconstriction, ischaemia, increased vascular permeability, impairment of nutritive tissue perfusion, ischaemia/reperfusion, leukocyte adherence, hemorrheological changes and impaired lymphatic drainage. Ischaemia possibly acts as an initiating factor of pancreatic microcirculatory injury in acute pancreatitis, or as an aggravating/continuing mechanism. The end-artery feature of the intralobular arterioles suggests that the pancreatic microcirculation is highly susceptible to ischaemia. Various vasoactive mediators, as bradykinin, platelet activating factor, endothelin and nitric oxide participate in the development of microcirculatory failure.
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