The ageing pancreas: a systematic review of the evidence and analysis of the consequences.

Senior people constitute the fastest growing segment of the population. The elderly are at risk for malnutrition, thought to be caused by reduced food intake or involution of the physiological capacity of the GI tract. Age-related changes are well known in other secretory organs such as liver, kidney and intestine. The pancreas, representing a metabolically active organ with uptake and breakdown of essential nutritional components, changes its morphology and function with age. During childhood, the volume of the pancreas increases, reaching a plateau between 20 and 60 years, and declines thereafter. This decline involves the pancreatic parenchyma and is associated with decreased perfusion, fibrosis and atrophy. As a consequence of these changes, pancreatic exocrine function is impaired in healthy older individuals without any gastrointestinal disease. Five per cent of people older than 70 years and ten per cent older than 80 years have pancreatic exocrine insufficiency (PEI) with a faecal elastase-1 below 200 µg g-1 stool, and 5% have severe PEI with faecal elastase-1 below 100 µg g-1 stool. This may lead to maldigestion and malnutrition. Patients may have few symptoms, for example steatorrhoea, diarrhoea, abdominal pain and weight loss. Malnutrition consists of deficits of fat-soluble vitamins and is affecting both patients with PEI and the elderly. Secondary consequences may include decreased bone mineral density and results from impaired absorption of fat-soluble vitamin D due to impaired pancreatic exocrine function. The unanswered question is whether this age-related decrease in pancreatic function warrants therapy. Therapeutic intervention, which may consist of supplementation of pancreatic enzymes and/or vitamins in aged individuals with proven exocrine pancreas insufficiency, could contribute to healthy ageing.

Conservative Treatment of Chronic Pancreatitis: A Practical Approach.

BACKGROUND: Chronic pancreatitis is a long-standing, inflammatory condition of the pancreas that leads to the progressive damage and loss of function of pancreatic parenchyma and to the development of possible locoregional and systemic medical complications. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this review, we tried to summarize the current evidence on non-surgical treatment trying to suggest a practical approach to the management of chronic pancreatitis. RESULTS: Besides the unclear pathophysiological mechanism and a poorly unknown epidemiology, chronic pancreatitis is a complex syndrome that displays different possible challenges for physicians. Despite being traditionally considered as a benign disease, chronic pancreatitis encompasses 10-year mortality rates which are superior to the ones reported for some of the most common cancers. CONCLUSIONS: Chronic pancreatitis encompasses the management of multiple and complex medical co-morbidities that needs to be understood and addressed in a multidisciplinary specialist context.

[Indications for pancreatic biopsy. Uncommon, but increasingly more important]. / Indikationen zur Pankreasbiopsie. Selten, aber zunehmend bedeutsamer.

Pancreatic biopsy is an invasive diagnostic method that is only performed when all other diagnostic measures for establishing the diagnosis of a tumorous lesion of the pancreas have failed. Because of the advances in modern imaging techniques, fine needle biopsy of the pancreas guided by ultrasonography, computer tomography or endosonography has become a reliable method that allows the diagnosis of ductal adenocarcinoma or any of the other, rarer pancreatic tumors with high sensitivity and specificity. Complications are rare, particularly with the endosonographically guided biopsy. A new biopsy indication is the demonstration of certain markers or gene mutations that are needed for the initiation of special treatments, e.g. EGFR-Cetuximab.