Chronic pancreatitis is a fibroinflammatory disease of the pancreas. Etiologically, most cases
are related to alcohol abuse and smoking. Recently, gene mutations have been identified as
the cause of hereditary pancreatitis. Other chronic pancreatitis types that were defined in
recent years are autoimmune pancreatitis (lymphoplasmacytic sclerosing pancreatitis) and
paraduodenal pancreatitis ('groove pancreatitis','cystic dystrophy of heterotopic pancreas').
This review describes and discusses the main histological findings, the pathogenesis and …