[Echographic early diagnosis of chronic alcoholic pancreatitis? (author's transl)]

The normal size of the pancreas should be checked and classified in a large collection of abstinent people of various ages. We are of the opinion that abstinent persons have a pancreas less than 1.5 cm thick and that great deviations are of exogenous origin. Alcohol presumably leads to edema of the pancreas. If alcohol is abused increasingly and/or persistently, a low-echo enlargement of the pancreas of more than 2.5 cm appears. A clinically detectable pancreatic insufficiency only occurs when the lymph drainage in the acini of the pancreas is damaged through decompensation and a reduction of secretion results. This process seems to have a course of 6-10 years and to run parallel with the consumption of alcohol.