Recurrent acute pancreatitis: From the editor

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This special issue of World Journal of Gastroenterology contains a number of articles focusing on acute recurrent pancreatitis, a clinical entity that still remains a complex diagnostic and therapeutic challenge in clinical practice. Recurrent bouts of pancreatitis mainly occur in a gland which shows a normal morphology of both parenchyma and pancreatico-biliary ductal system at the time of diagnosis, when standard investigation is used; however, the introduction of ultrasound endoscopy (EUS) in clinical practice allowed us to identify mild to moderate ductal and parenchymal alterations in a relevant part of these patients, suggesting a chronic process, observed either at the onset of the disease or during the follow-up period. These pancreatic abnormalities can either suggest the presence of an underlying chronic process which evolves over time with recurrent attacks of acute pancreatitis or can be the consequence of multiple, self-limiting acute inflammatory episodes that induce persistent lesions within the gland with time.