Clinical and CT Imaging Features of Chronic Pancreatitis: A Cross‐Sectional Study From Vietnam

Aims Chronic pancreatitis (CP) is a progressive inflammatory condition with insidious and nonspecific symptoms; however, data on its clinical and computed tomography (CT) based characteristics in Vietnam remain limited. This study aimed to characterize the clinical features and contrast‐enhanced CT findings of Vietnamese patients with CP and to assess the association between clinical manifestations and morphological severity using the Cambridge classification. Methods and Results We conducted a cross‐sectional study of patients diagnosed with CP at a tertiary hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Demographics, risk factors, clinical symptoms, and CT imaging characteristics were recorded. Morphologic severity was graded using the Cambridge system. A total of 160 patients were included; 85.6% were male, with a median age of 50 years. Alcohol‐related disease was the predominant etiology (62.5%). Notably, 24.4% had disease onset before 35 years of age, and 33.1% had no prior history of acute pancreatitis. Abdominal pain was the most common symptom (87.5%), followed by weight loss and diabetes mellitus. CT imaging demonstrated advanced structural abnormalities, with pancreatic calcifications in 85.0% of patients, ductal dilatation in 73.1%, and 92.5% classified as Cambridge grade 4. Within this predominantly advanced‐stage cohort, no statistically significant association was detected between clinical manifestations and CT‐based morphological severity. Conclusion In this tertiary‐center CT‐based cohort from Vietnam, CP was characterized by heterogeneous clinical manifestations and predominantly advanced CT abnormalities. The absence of a detectable symptom–severity association in this advanced‐stage cohort supports the need for more comprehensive diagnostic approaches to enable earlier recognition of CP.