Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Endosc. Jun 16, 2022; 14(6): 376-386
Published online Jun 16, 2022. doi: 10.4253/wjge.v14.i6.376
Endoscopic ultrasound diagnostic gain over computed tomography and magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography in defining etiology of idiopathic acute pancreatitis
Stefano Mazza, Biagio Elvo, Clara Benedetta Conti, Andrea Drago, Maria Chiara Verga, Sara Soro, Annalisa De Silvestri, Fabrizio Cereatti, Roberto Grassia
Stefano Mazza, Andrea Drago, Maria Chiara Verga, Sara Soro, Roberto Grassia, Gastroenterology and Digestive Endoscopy Unit, ASST Cremona, Cremona 26100, Italy
Biagio Elvo, Gastroenterology and Endoscopy Unit, Federico II University, Napoli 80131, Italy
Clara Benedetta Conti, Interventional Endoscopy Unit, ASST Monza, Monza 20900, Italy
Annalisa De Silvestri, Biometry and Clinical Epidemiology, Scientific Direction, IRCCS San Matteo Hospital Foundation, Pavia 27100, Italy
Fabrizio Cereatti, Department of Gastroenterology and Digestive Endoscopy, Castelli Hospital, Ariccia (Rm) 00040, Italy
Author contributions: All authors contributed to literature search and data collect; Mazza S, Elvo B and Grassia R wrote the paper; Mazza S and De Silvestri A performed the statistical analysis; Conti CB, Drago A, Verga MC, Soro S and Cereatti F critically revised the paper and contributed to the final version of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: Approval by Ethics Committee of our Center was not required because of the retrospective nature of the study.
Informed consent statement: Patients were not required to give informed consent to the study because the analysis used anonymous clinical data that were obtained after each patient agreed to treatment by written consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors have no financial relationships to disclose.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Stefano Mazza, MD, Doctor, Gastroenterology and Digestive Endoscopy Unit, ASST Cremona, Viale Concordia, 1, Cremona 26100, Italy. stem311089@gmail.com
Received: January 28, 2022
Peer-review started: January 28, 2022
First decision: April 10, 2022
Revised: April 23, 2022
Accepted: May 22, 2022
Article in press: May 22, 2022
Published online: June 16, 2022
Core Tip

Core Tip: Acute pancreatitis (AP) is a common and potentially severe disease. Imaging techniques allow an etiological diagnosis in most cases. However, about 20% of cases remain idiopathic, with negative consequences on patients’ outcomes. Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) has emerged as a valid technique for the assessment of AP etiology. We share our experience with EUS in the identification of idiopathic AP etiology, after failure of one or more cross-sectional imaging techniques. We found a superiority of EUS over the standard cross-sectional imaging techniques. We therefore suggest the use of EUS to define idiopathic AP etiology in all suitable patients.