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1n 1995, Yoshida et al.1 summarized the clinical features of several patients with unusual chronic pancreatitis showing diffuse irregular narrowing of main pancreatic duct and proposed the concept of autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP). Thereafter, many cases of AIP have been reported in Western countries as well as Japan. In Korea, 1st case of AIP was reported in 20022 and AIP is increasingly being reported.3 The increments probably seems to be due to the growing awareness of the disease entity rather than a rise of the true incidence. According to the multicenter nationwide study in Korea, AIP was 2.0% among 814 patients with chronic pancreatitis.4 For the past four decades, various morphologic descriptions have been proposed to characterize this disease: nonalcoholic duct-destructive chronic pancreatitis, lymphoplasmacytic sclerosing pancreatitis with cholangitis, chronic sclerosing pancreatitis, pseudotumorous pancreatitis, and duct-narrowing chronic pancreatitis. Recently, the term autoimmune pancreatitis has become widely accepted, although it is apparent that AIP is a heterogeneous disease.
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