Molecular Genetics of Chronic Pancreatitis : Implications in Diagnosis and Prognosis

Chronic pancreatitis (CP), a worldwide disease, is primarily recognized as a long-standing inflammation of the pancreas that alters the organ's normal structure and functions. CP reflects the end-stage pathology of inflammation-associated diseases. It presents episodes of acute inflammation or chronic damage of pancreas with symptoms of persistent abdominal pain or malabsorption, weight loss, pain related to the intake of food containing a high percentage of fats and protein. The health conditions of diabetics have been found to deteriorate due to pancreatic damage in CP. A plethora of information has emerged in recent years in the area of pancreatitis research. The frontiers of current pancreatic research reflected its newer definitions, classifications, tools for investigations, animal models, insight into the molecular mechanisms of the initiation of the earliest pancreatic injury, the role of cytokines and inflammation; and attributes of genetic mutations in SPINK1 CFTR, CTSB, MTHFR and ACE etc. during pancreatitis. The topological variations of patients have been found to be associated to a different trend of pathogenesis and severity of the disease, which might be associated to relatively poor nutritional uptake and other environmental factors. Keeping these facts in view, we envisaged to bring out an updated overview on this subject in general and to present the experiment based information on tropical chronic pancreatitis (TCP) in the patients from northern part of India in particular.