Buket Daldaban Sarıca, MD, Doctor, Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Kayseri City Training and Research Hospital, Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu Blvd, Kayseri 38080, Türkiye. buketdaldaban@gmail.com
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
research-article
Open-Access Policy of This Article
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/
Buket Daldaban Sarıca, Zehra Filiz Karaman, Derya Altay, Duran Arslan
Buket Daldaban Sarıca, Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Kayseri City Training and Research Hospital, Kayseri 38080, Türkiye
Zehra Filiz Karaman, Department of Pediatric Radiology, Erciyes University Faculty of Medicine, Kayseri 38039, Türkiye
Derya Altay, Duran Arslan, Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Erciyes University Faculty of Medicine, Kayseri 38039, Türkiye
Author contributions: Daldaban Sarıca B, Filiz Karaman Z, Altay D, and Arslan D conceived and designed the study and collected the data; Daldaban Sarıca B and Arslan D analyzed the data; Daldaban Sarıca B, Altay D, and Arslan D drafted and revised the manuscript; all authors reviewed and approved the final version of the manuscript.
AI contribution statement: Portions of this manuscript were edited using AI-assisted tools solely for language refinement. The authors reviewed all edits and take full responsibility for the manuscript content.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by Erciyes University Ethics Committee (No. 2024/261).
Informed consent statement: Given the retrospective design of the study and the use of anonymized medical record data, the requirement for written informed consent was waived by the ethics committee. All procedures were conducted in accordance with institutional ethical standards and the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: The datasets generated and/or analyzed in the current study are not publicly available due to institutional and ethical restrictions.
Corresponding author: Buket Daldaban Sarıca, MD, Doctor, Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Kayseri City Training and Research Hospital, Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu Blvd, Kayseri 38080, Türkiye. buketdaldaban@gmail.com
Received: April 20, 2026 Revised: May 30, 2026 Accepted: July 8, 2026 Published online: October 14, 2026 Processing time: 143 Days and 2.8 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Genetic factors are widely recognized as major contributors to the etiology of chronic pancreatitis in the pediatric population. Variants in CFTR, PRSS1, PRSS2, SPINK1, CTRC, and CASR may be associated with specific radiologic findings involving the pancreatic parenchyma or ductal architecture and may influence clinical phenotype and disease course through effects on pancreatic enzyme secretion, ductal function, and inflammatory responses.
AIM
To compare clinical and radiologic findings among pediatric patients with chronic pancreatitis according to genetic subtype.
METHODS
Data from 18 pediatric patients with genetically defined chronic pancreatitis were retrospectively reviewed. Patients with genetic variants were categorized into three exploratory groups: CFTR, CTRC/PRSS1, and SPINK1. Collected data included demographic and clinical characteristics, identified variants, cross-sectional imaging findings [magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and/or computed tomography (CT)], and laboratory results. All radiologic images were evaluated by a pediatric radiologist using predefined descriptive criteria. Given the small sample size and retrospective design, all analyses were considered exploratory.
RESULTS
Pancreatic atrophy was detected more frequently on MRI and CT in the CFTR (88.9%) and CTRC/PRSS1 (80.0%) groups. Median amylase levels were highest in the CTRC/PRSS1 group [median: 1655 (790-3000)]. The SPINK1 group showed nominally higher serum calcium levels (P = 0.021); however, this comparison was based on a small subgroup, and multiple subgroup comparisons were performed.
CONCLUSION
These exploratory findings suggest that radiologic and biochemical features may vary according to genetic background in pediatric chronic pancreatitis. Larger prospective studies with standardized imaging assessment are needed to validate these observations.
Core Tip: Although genetic factors constitute a major component of the etiology of pediatric chronic pancreatitis, radiologic phenotypic differences among genetic subtypes remain poorly characterized. In this study, genetically associated pediatric chronic pancreatitis cases were categorized into CFTR, CTRC/PRSS1, and SPINK1 subgroups, and their clinical, biochemical, and cross-sectional imaging findings were compared. These findings suggest that genetic background may contribute to radiologic and biochemical differences in pediatric chronic pancreatitis.
