The Adult Pancreas in Trauma and Disease

Abstract

The spectrum of traumatic and natural disease that can affect the adult pancreas is multiple and varied. Some entities are more commonly encountered in routine forensic pathology practice and the forensic pathologist needs to be very familiar with their pathological features and development from a pathophysiological perspective. However, many of the conditions are extremely rare and may never be encountered in the professional lifetimes of an individual pathologist. Still, forensic pathologists need to be aware of them in case they are one day faced with these entities as possible diagnoses to be established at postmortem examination. This can be the result of clinical concerns raised in life, potential natural disease explanations for unexpected biochemical results, and sudden, unexpected or otherwise unexplained deaths where criminal concern about the exogenous administration of a substance must be considered. Acad Forensic Pathol. 2018 8(2): 192-218.