• Chronic pancreatitis

I read with interest the paper by Midha et al1 which brings a new perspective on non-alcoholic chronic pancreatitis in India which raises some concerns.

The term ‘tropical pancreatitis’ was used to denote a form of chronic pancreatitis unassociated with alcohol abuse which occurred in the tropics and subtropics. The subtropics, by definition, denote geographic areas adjacent to the tropical zone (usually 20–40° latitude) where daytime temperatures remain above 10°C for >8 months of the year. India's geographic latitudinal extent is 6.74678°N to 37.09681°N and daytime temperatures do exceed 10°C for >8 months, and hence qualifies as being ‘tropical’.

In the study, the definition for chronic pancreatitis is vague. Our own preference is to use four criteria: …