Current status and unresolved issues in early chronic pancreatitis

Key Points

• The aim is to address the current unresolved issues surrounding the diagnosis of early chronic pancreatitis and its implications for prevention.
• Reviewed the mechanistic definition and revised diagnostic criteria for early chronic pancreatitis (ECP).
• Analyzed the effectiveness of EUS findings in improving diagnostic specificity and reproducibility.
• Examined the potential of biomarkers such as ApoA2-i and PGE2 for assessing disease stages.
• Revised diagnostic criteria for ECP showed improved inter-observer agreement in EUS findings.
• Challenges remain in distinguishing EUS findings from age-related changes and normal pancreas variations.
• Recent methods such as EUS-elastography allow for quantitative assessment of pancreatic stiffness.