Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 21, 2015; 21(3): 836-853
Published online Jan 21, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i3.836
Pharmacological attenuation of chronic alcoholic pancreatitis induced hypersensitivity in rats
Sabrina L McIlwrath, Karin N Westlund
Sabrina L McIlwrath, Karin N Westlund, Department of Physiology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40536-0298, United States
Author contributions: Westlund KN designed the research and edited the paper; McIlwrath SL performed the research, analyzed the data, and wrote the paper.
Supported by National Institutes of Health, No. NINDS R01 NS39041.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Karin N Westlund, PhD, Professor, Department of Physiology, University of Kentucky, MS-508 Medical Center, 800 Rose St., Lexington, KY 40536-0298, United States. kwhigh2@uky.edu
Telephone: +1-859-3233668 Fax: +1-859-3231070
Received: June 20, 2014
Peer-review started: June 20, 2014
First decision: August 6, 2014
Revised: August 16, 2014
Accepted: September 29, 2014
Article in press: September 30, 2014
Published online: January 21, 2015
Processing time: 214 Days and 15 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Chronic pancreatitis is a progressive and potentially fatal disease caused by persistent unresolved inflammation and pancreatic fibrosis. It can be accompanied by intractable abdominal pain and progress to type 3c diabetes mellitus (T3cDM) and pancreatic cancer. Animal models of acute pancreatitis are typically chemically induced, invasive, of short duration, and have a high mortality rate. This study characterizes a diet-induced chronic rat model closely mimicking poor human dietary choices to investigate therapies for alcoholic chronic pancreatitis with developing T3cDM. The efficacy of acute opioid and non-opioid pharmacological interventions are compared to morphine in pain-related behavior tests.