Pancreatitis and Pancreatic Tumors

What is Pancreatitis?

Pancreatitis is a disease in which your pancreas becomes inflamed. The pancreas is a large gland behind your stomach and next to your small intestine.

Your pancreas does two main things:

• It releases powerful digestive enzymes into your small intestine to help you digest food.
• It releases insulin and glucagon into your bloodstream. These hormones help your body control how it uses food for energy.

Your pancreas can be damaged when digestive enzymes begin working before your pancreas releases them.

What Are the Types of Pancreatitis?
The two forms of pancreatitis are acute and chronic.

Acute Pancreatitis is sudden inflammation that lasts a short time. It can range from mild discomfort to a severe, life-threatening illness. Most people with acute pancreatitis recover completely after getting the right treatment. In severe cases, acute pancreatitis can cause bleeding, serious tissue damage, infection, and cysts. Severe pancreatitis can also harm other vital organs such as the heart, lungs, and kidneys.

Chronic pancreatitis is long-lasting inflammation. It most often happens after an episode of acute pancreatitis. Another top cause is drinking lots of alcohol for a long period of time. Damage to your pancreas from heavy alcohol use may not cause symptoms for many years, but then you may suddenly have severe pancreatitis symptoms.

Pancreatic Cancer
Pancreatic cancer is usually not found until advanced stages because it is hard to detect. Signs of pancreatic cancer include jaundice and weight loss. Risk factors include having diabetes and exposure to certain chemicals. Specific treatment depends on the size and location of the tumor, and whether or not it has spread to other areas of the body.

What are the types of pancreatic cancer?
There are two types of tumors that grow in the pancreas: exocrine or neuroendocrine tumors. About 93% of all pancreatic tumors are exocrine tumors, and the most common kind of pancreatic cancer is called adenocarcinoma. Pancreatic adenocarcinoma is what people usually mean when they say they have pancreatic cancer. The most common type begins in the ducts of the pancreas and is called ductal adenocarcinoma.

The rest of the pancreatic tumors about 7% of the total are neuroendocrine tumors (NETs), also called pancreatic NETs (PNETs), an islet cell tumor or islet cell carcinoma. Some NETs produce excessive hormones. They may be called names based on the type of hormone the cell makes, for instance, insulinoma would be a tumor in a cell that makes insulin.