Clinical relevance of experimental acute pancreatitis

There are several well-standardized models of experimental acute pancreatitis such as the closed duodenal loop technique, cholecystokinin or cerulein stimulation, duct injection and diet-induced acute experimental pancreatitis. With regard to human acute pancreatitis, experimental models in animals have a considerable high clinical relevance if the subject of investigation concerns pathogenetic, morphological and diagnostic approaches to the disease; as regards the treatment modalities and causative therapy of acute pancreatitis, experimental models in animals up to now seem to be far away from the clinical situation and therefore these protocols have low clinical relevance. The reasons for this discrepancy are outlined in this paper.