Role of oxygen radicals in experimental acute pancreatitis

A growing body of evidence suggests that oxygen radicals are generated in all forms of experimental pancreatitis at an early stage of disease. Moreover, first indirect observations assume that also in human acute recurrent and chronic pancreatitis oxygen free radicals are generated and add to the damages seen. The source of the enhanced production of oxygen radicals remains still unclear. Experimentally, the efficiency of scavenger treatment varies between three different models, whereby these differences depend more on the design of the experimental models than on the form of pancreatitis which was induced. Antioxidant treatment with radical scavengers should therefore interrupt these deleterious pathomechanisms or at least mitigate the damages normally seen. Most studies, however, pretreated the experimental animals before inducing acute pancreatitis, which does not mirror the clinical reality. Patients, however, are admitted after onset of the disease. Therefore, well-defined, controlled clinical studies are needed to validate the involvement of oxygen radicals in acute and chronic pancreatitis and the effect of scavenger treatment in patients with pancreatitis.