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Novel and Experimental Therapies in Chronic Pancreatitis

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Abstract

Chronic pancreatitis (CP) is a progressive inflammatory disease of the pancreas. The currently available treatment of CP is aimed at controlling symptoms and managing complications. Unfortunately, no specific treatment is available to halt the progression of the disease process because the pathophysiological perturbations in CP are not well understood. In this review, we discuss various therapeutic targets and investigational agents acting on these targets. Among these, therapies modulating immune cells and those acting on pancreatic stellate cells appear promising and may translate into clinical benefit in near future. However, these experimental therapies are mostly in animal models and they do not recapitulate all aspects of human disease. Still they may be beneficial in developing effective therapeutic modalities to curb inflammation in chronic pancreatitis.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge that the figures of the article were assisted by Mr. Sanjay Saini, who is not employed by any corporate agency.

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  1. Department of Gastroenterology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India

    Soumya Jagannath & Pramod Kumar Garg

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  1. Soumya Jagannath
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Correspondence to Pramod Kumar Garg.

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Jagannath, S., Garg, P.K. Novel and Experimental Therapies in Chronic Pancreatitis. Dig Dis Sci 62, 1751–1761 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10620-017-4604-0

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