REVIEW article
Front. Physiol.
Sec. Gastrointestinal Sciences
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphys.2025.1622845
This article is part of the Research TopicPain Mechanisms, The Drivers of Quality of Life in Patients with Gastrointestinal DisordersView all articles
Navigating Chronic Pancreatitis Pain: A Pathophysiological and Therapeutic Overview
Provisionally accepted
- 1Michigan State University, East Lansing, United States
- 2Karsh Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States
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Pain management in chronic pancreatitis (CP) patients remains a major challenge, largely due to complex and refractory pain. Such pain detrimentally impacts patients by reducing quality of life, limiting daily activities, increasing psychological distress, necessitating frequent hospitalizations, and contributing to opioid dependence and socioeconomic burden. This review delineates the multifaceted nature of CP-related pain, highlighting the roles of neurogenic inflammation, maladaptive neuroplasticity, and disrupted pain modulation pathways. Current management strategies are multidisciplinary, encompassing lifestyle modification, pharmacologic therapies, endoscopic and surgical interventions, and nerve-targeted procedures (e.g., celiac plexus blocks and neurolysis). Advances in genetics, bioinformatics and biomarker research have further enhanced our understanding of CP-related pain pathogenesis, paving the way for precision medicine approaches. This review highlights current evidence and emerging innovations in the evolving landscape of CP-related pain management, emphasizing the importance of tailored and interdisciplinary care to address the intricate mechanism of CP-related pain and improve patient outcomes.
Keywords: Central sensitisation, Chronic pancreatitis, Quality of Life, Pain managemant, Neurogenic Inflammation
Received: 04 May 2025; Accepted: 26 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lin, Pandol and Jiang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yi Jiang, Karsh Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States
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