As we began to plan this book about 10 years ago, we wanted to write a
practical book for medical students, doctors in training, internists,
gas- and surgeons faced with everyday clinical problems in
troenterologists, the care of patients with acute and chronic
pancreatitis. Now, 10 years lat- er, our book has become much more than
what we had originally intend- ed, with so many new findings that have
expanded our knowledge of pancreatic diseases, not to mention new
imaging procedures and con- trolled studies on the effectiveness of
various therapies. Consequently, we decided to include: - The
state-of-the-art on diagnosis and therapy in inflammatory pan- creatic
diseases - Recommendations for diagnosis and therapy based on the
published results from experienced clinicians. In the many areas still
untested we have relied on the decades of experience of the two authors
on both sides of the Atlantic - A discussion of unanswered questions for
future research by physi- cians interested in pancreatitis who can draw
upon our bibliography of almost 1900 references complete through 1996.
We also wanted to demonstrate with this work that two authors from two
continents can come to common conclusions that can help physicians and
students in their everyday clinical work and their clinical research. It
is with deep gratitude that we acknowledge the assistance of Mrs. Gisela
Ropte for years of patient cooperation, great precision, and initia-
tive, as well as that of Dr. Dr.