FIBROSIS OF THE PANCREAS IN INFANTS AND CHILDREN

Abstract

THE CLINICAL syndrome fibrosis of the pancreas has received considerable attention in the medical literature of the world during the past ten years—so much so that the appearance of a patient with this disease is no longer regarded as unusual. Reports on the pathology, symptomatology, pathogenesis and etiology of the syndrome have appeared, and yet any critical appraisal of these publications makes it obvious that the complete picture is unknown. A review of the literature on the subject has recently appeared.¹ The purpose of this report is to present a statistical analysis of the data which have been obtained from a study of 134 patients with fibrosis of the pancreas who were seen at the Infants' and Children's Hospital in Boston during the past ten years. No attempt has been made to evaluate or describe the clinical types of the disease, its course or its pathology. There remain, however,