Pancreas is an elongated gland situated behind the stomach in upper abdominal region.
Pancreatitis is an inflammation of pancreas, chronic pancreatitis occurs due to repetitive attacks of acute pancreatitis or due to injury to pancreas.
Pancreas main function is to produce pancreatic enzymes for digestion of food, besides it also produces insulin to maintain blood glucose level and bicarbonate to neutralize the stomach acid.
Pancreatitis is a serious condition, and chronic pancreatitis survival rate after 10 years is 60 to 80%. The risk factor affecting the life expectancy in chronic pancreatitis is due to cancer of the pancreas, liver damage and hemorrhage in pancreas.
Chronic pancreatitis life expectancy is reduced by abuse of alcohol and tobacco. Physicians always advise chronic pancreatitis patients to refrain from alcohol and tobacco, as they further damage the pancreas after an acute attack, even they can trigger a fresh attack. More on Treatment for Multi Myeloma Cancer
Therefore to improve the life expectancy, a patient suffering from chronic pancreatitis should be fastidious in food habits and abstain from alcohol. he should not eat fats in large amount, he should have liberal intake of vegetables, soups, fruits, yogurt etc. and drink enough water.
Chronic pancreatitis may or may not present any symptoms, it can be detected accidentally while investigating for other reasons or in some cases there is a history of repeated acute attacks of pancreatitis.
Ultra sound scan, CT scan, MRI scan and ERCP are diagnostic tools for detecting and diagnosing chronic pancreatitits.