Elevated Levels of Alpha Cells Emanating from the Pancreatic Ducts of a Patient with a Low BMI and Chronic Pancreatitis

Abstract

Chronic pancreatitis (CP) is an inflammatory disease that causes progressive damage to the pancreatic parenchyma with irreversible morphological changes and fibrotic replacement of the gland. The risk factors associated with developing CP have been described as toxic (e.g., alcohol and tobacco); idiopathic (e.g., unknown); genetic, autoimmune, recurrent acute pancreatitis, and obstructive (the TIGAR-O system). Upon histological screening of the pancreata from a cohort of CP patients who had undergone pancreatectomy for the treatment of intractable pain in Leicester, UK, one sample showed a striking change in the morphological balance toward an endocrine phenotype, most notably there was evidence of substantial α cell genesis enveloping entire cross sections of ductal epithelium and the presence of α cells within the ductal lumens. This patient had previously undergone a partial pancreatectomy, had severe sclerosing CP, an exceptionally low body mass index (15.2), and diabetes at the time the pancreas was removed, and although these factors have been shown to induce tissue remodeling, such high levels of α cells was an unusual finding within our series of patients. Due to the fact that α cells have been shown to be the first endocrine cell type that emerges during islet neogenesis, future research profiling the factors that caused such marked α cell genesis may prove useful in the field of islet transplantation.