Letter to the Editor
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Nov 26, 2022; 10(33): 12458-12461
Published online Nov 26, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i33.12458
Diagnostic value of imaging examination in autoimmune pancreatitis
Bo Xiao, Yun Peng, Fang Wang
Fang Wang, Yun Peng, Bo Xiao, Department of Radiology, Affiliated Hospital of North Sichuan Medical College, Nanchong 637000, Sichuan Province, China
Fang Wang, Yun Peng, Department of Radiology, The Hospital of Chinese Traditional Medicine of Leshan, Leshan 614000, Sichuan Province, China
Author contributions: Wang F, Peng Y, and Xiao B designed the research study, analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest to disclose.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Bo Xiao, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Doctor, Teacher, Department of Radiology, Affiliated Hospital of North Sichuan Medical College, No. 1 Maoyuan South Street, Nanchong 637000, Sichuan Province, China. xiaoboimaging@163.com
Received: September 15, 2022
Peer-review started: September 15, 2022
First decision: September 27, 2022
Revised: October 6, 2022
Accepted: November 2, 2022
Article in press: November 2, 2022
Published online: November 26, 2022
Processing time: 69 Days and 6.3 Hours
Abstract

Autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP) is a special type of chronic pancreatitis mediated by autoimmunity factors. It can be divided into two categories according to pathological characteristics: Lymphoplasmacytic sclerosing pancreatitis and idiopathic duct-centric pancreatitis. In the clinical setting, the imaging manifestations of some AIP cases are atypical, so it is difficult to distinguish it from general pancreatitis, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, lymphoma, and other malignant disorders. Most importantly, the treatment for and prognosis of these diseases are different. Therefore, a timely correct imaging diagnosis of AIP is key for AIP patients. After that, clinicians can take appropriate treatment measures for those patients, which is helpful for the prognosis of AIP.

Keywords: Autoimmune pancreatitis; Diagnosis; Computed tomography; Magnetic resonance imaging; Pancreatic cancer

Core Tip: Autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP) is a special form of chronic pancreatitis mediated by autoimmunity. Because the clinical presentation is not specific, the progress of imaging diagnosis and differential diagnosis of AIP may increase the awareness of AIP among clinicians. Timely intervention is very good for AIP patients. Clinicians can adopt the effective method in the early course of the disease. We propose five related research directions in this paper. We hope that the clinical work and scientific research can start from these aspects in the future. AIP patients will benefit from continuous exploration of imaging differential diagnosis and prognosis assessment of AIP.