Progression of recurrent acute to chronic pancreatitis: More questions than answers!

摘要

Acute pancreatitis (AP) continues to pose a substantial challenge to clinicians and researchers. It has been proposed that an index episode of AP could progress to recurrent AP (RAP) and may finally culminate into chronic pancreatitis (CP). This is the sentinel acute pancreatitis event (SAPE) hypothesis that defines pancreatitis as a disease spectrum [1]. Even though several clinical and bench studies have provided insights into the pathophysiology of the disease [2–5], there is still no modality to accurately predict the progression of RAP to CP. This gap in understanding has likely, at least in part, precluded development of any specific interventions that could prevent progression of RAP to CP or reverse the changes of CP.