Pancreatic histopathology is considered the reference method to confirm pancreatitis and definitively distinguish acute from chronic disease in dogs and cats, and several scoring systems have been proposed. However, veterinary pathology still shows variability in terminology and classification criteria, which can limit study comparability and complicate clinical interpretation. The acute-chronic distinction relies on recent injury (edema, neutrophilic inflammation, necrosis) versus permanent remodeling (fibrosis, acinar atrophy), and mixed patterns (acute-on-chronic) are relatively common. Histopathology is not a perfect “gold standard” because lesions may be subclinical and often focal, so limited sampling can miss affected areas. Pancreatic biopsy is invasive, and therefore seldom performed solely for diagnosis, but it can be acceptably safe in selected cases, being most informative when integrated with clinical data and concurrent liver/intestinal biopsies, especially in cats.
(Mateescu) et al. (Thu,) studied this question.