[Eosinophilic pancreatitis: a rare manifestation of digestive allergy?]

Abstract

We report a case of subacute pancreatitis in a 26-year-old woman, who underwent partial pancreatectomy after a two-week history of abdominal pain. The patient had a long history of allergy. She did not show any well recognized cause of acute or chronic pancreatitis. This patient was thought to have eosinophilic pancreatitis because of the presence of a prominent eosinophilic infiltrate in the resected pancreas. Eosinophilic infiltration of the pancreas has been reported very rarely in the literature, and is usually associated with more generalized disease. In our case there was no extrapancreatic involvement, as shown by repeatedly normal blood eosinophil counts, and by histologically normal spleen, celiac lymph nodes, and gastroduodenal biopsies. We suggest that an allergic mechanism might be responsible for this patient's disease, based on past history of allergic manifestations and the important increase in her serum IgE.