[Clinical course of alcoholic pancreatitis].
OBJECTIVE
To study a natural course of alcoholic pancreatitis (AP).


METHODS
Follow-up clinical, laboratory and radiation examinations were made of 170 patients with alcoholic pancreatitis. Exocrine secretion of the pancreas was assessed by secretin-pancreozymin test. Morphological signs of pancreatitis were studied in patients who had died of pancreatic cancer.


RESULTS
In 24% of patients AP manifested with acute attack. In 76% it was preceded with weak clinical symptoms. AP ran was complicated with pseudotumorous pancreatitis, calcinosis and pancreatic pseudocysts. Pancreatic secretion was suppressed in 87% patients though clinically it was evident only in 12% cases. Autopsy cases of pancreatic cancer carried morphological markers of chronic pancreatitis.


CONCLUSIONS
Various clinical forms of AP represent stages of its development: early symptoms, recurrences, complications and decompensated failure of the pancreatic function. The presence of pancreatitis in patients with pancreatic cancer causes difficulties in differential diagnosis between these diseases.
Sadokov
V M
VM
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019512:Pancreatitis, Alcoholic / Q000503:physiopathology*