EUS in the diagnosis of early-stage chronic pancreatitis

Chronic pancreatitis (CP) is a progressive inflammatory disease that is difficult to diagnose due to the paucity of a diagnostic gold standard. For almost two decades, early-stage CP has been recognised in the context of endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) when a patient presents with typical pancreatic-type pain, normal conventional imaging examinations, and subtle findings of CP by EUS. Whether these EUS findings represent true early-stage CP that will progress or whether they are false positive findings remain unclear. The key to enhancing the diagnostic precision of EUS in CP is to use objective, widely-accepted criteria that are reproducible. The Rosemont Criteria is a significant step towards achieving this goal and needs to be validated in conjunction with long-term studies of early-stage CP. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.