Small duct disease - more information

[Guest guest]

I hope I am not overkilling this subject but you have piqued my

curiousity and I really hate it when there is such murkiness and

diferences in what should be a clear cut definition.

So I thought I would just post some snippets from journal aricles

to see if other people are interpreting things the same way I

am....or what. As you can tell, I am becoming obsessed with

clarifying this issue! Hope it doens't annoy anyone.....

Snippet one from the center for advanced edoscopy and the

pancreatobiliary center:

http://www.eus.ucla.edu/pages/ptinfo/ChronicPancreatitis.html

" Small duct disease refers to involvement of the side branches

of the pancreas, without gross abnormalities of the main

pancreatic duct itself. "

See I KNEW that I read this somewhere - I am not going crazy

afterall!

2). from an aritcle in Current Reports in Gastroenterology:

" The importance of small duct disease without radiographic

abnormalities is now a well-established concept. It is

meaningful to determine whether patients with chronic

pancreatitis have small duct or large duct disease because this

distinction has therapeutic implications. "

again this supports my first post

3) from the journal of hepatobiliary pancreatic surgery:

" Forty-five patients with chronic pancreatitis and main pancreatic

ductal diameters less than 5 mm (group 1) underwent lateral

pancreaticojejunostomy with varying degrees of head coring.

Their outcomes were recorded and compared with 212 patients

who had large ducts (diameter >7 mm) group " .

But here is one that refutes my first post - frustrating!

There are many more references that I found that bounce back

between the two general ideas of small duct disease definition. I

think that I can come up with a possible explanation for the

seeming discrepancies of what small duct disease is but I feel

foolish presenting it in case I am grossly wrong.

Laurie