Pancreatitis

Conditions and Treatments

Pancreatitis has two stages -- acute and chronic.

• Acute pancreatitis affects about 80,000 Americans annually and occurs suddenly after the pancreas is damaged. Some patients may have more than one attack, but typically recover after each one. About 20 percent of cases are severe, leading to heart, lung or kidney failure. In the most severe cases, bleeding can occur in the pancreas, resulting in shock and sometimes death. Although the cause of the condition is sometimes unknown, it usually results from gallstones or alcohol abuse. Other less common causes of this condition include excessive levels of fat particles in the blood, mumps, drugs and surgery. In addition, pancreatitis can be heredity.

• Chronic pancreatitis begins as acute pancreatitis and becomes chronic when irreversible scarring of the pancreas occurs. There are a number of things that increase a person's risk of developing this condition, such as alcohol consumption, smoking, genetic factors and other conditions or traumatic events that injure the pancreas. The pancreas may eventually stop producing the enzymes necessary for your body to digest and absorb nutrients. In its advanced stages, the disease can cause the pancreas to lose its ability to produce insulin.

Reviewed by health care specialists at UCSF Medical Center.
Last updated February 14, 2008