Acute pancreatitis and chronic pancreatitis are complex inflammatory disorders of the pancreas with unpredictable severity, complications, and clinical courses. Growing evidence for genetic risk and modifying factors, plus strong evidence that only a minority of patients with these disorders are heavy alcohol drinkers, has revolutionized our concept of these diseases. Once considered a self-inf...

Background: Excessive alcohol consumption has long been known to be the primary cause of chronic pancreatitis (CP) but genetic risk factors have increasingly identified over past 25 years. The scale and scope gene-alcohol interactions in CP nevertheless remain unclear. Methods: All studies that had obtained variant data concurrently on alcoholic (ACP) patients, non-ACP (NACP) patients normal co...

Chronic pancreatitis is a progressive inflammatory process of the pancreas that leads to fibrosis and exocrine and endocrine function loss with structural changes demonstrated by radiologic and histologic evidence. The clinical course of the disease is characterized by recurrent episodes of acute pancreatitis appearing at early ages, followed by a final stage with calcifications, pancreatic ins...