Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Sep 14, 2016; 22(34): 7660-7675
Published online Sep 14, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i34.7660
Exploring the metabolic syndrome: Nonalcoholic fatty pancreas disease
Roberto Catanzaro, Biagio Cuffari, Angelo Italia, Francesco Marotta
Roberto Catanzaro, Biagio Cuffari, Angelo Italia, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Gastroenterology and Hepatology Service, Internal Medicine Unit, University Hospital Policlinico “G. Rodolico”, University of Catania, 95123 Catania, Italy
Francesco Marotta, ReGenera Research Group for Aging-Intervention, 20144 Milano, Italy
Author contributions: Catanzaro R and Cuffari B contributed equally to this work; Catanzaro R and Cuffari B designed and performed the research, analyzed data and wrote the paper; all authors contributed to revision and approval of the final version of this paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Open-Access: 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/
Correspondence to: Roberto Catanzaro, MD, PhD, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Gastroenterology and Hepatology Service, Internal Medicine Unit, University of Catania, Policlinico “G. Rodolico”, Via S. Sofia 78, 95123 Catania, Italy. rcatanza@unict.it
Telephone: +39-95-3782902 Fax: +39-95-3782376
Received: June 4, 2016
Peer-review started: June 4, 2016
First decision: July 12, 2016
Revised: July 25, 2016
Accepted: August 10, 2016
Article in press: August 10, 2016
Published online: September 14, 2016
Core Tip

Core tip: Nonalcoholic fatty pancreas disease is a very common yet neglected pathological condition. It can be considered an early marker of the metabolic syndrome and, as so, its clinical significance spaces between internal and surgical diseases, such as type 2 diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis, acute pancreatitis and even pancreatic cancer. This review collects current knowledge of worldwide opinion leaders and researchers of this matter.