A plea for uniform reporting of patient outcome in chronic pancreatitis.

THE NEED to improve the reporting of the results of various therapeutic maneuvers designed to relieve the pain and rectify the complications of chronic pancreatitis has long been recognized. 1 Factors considered important in assessing the efficacy of these therapeutic interventions include the ease and safety of their use, the completeness and duration of the pain relief they induce, the incidence and severity of any physiological impairments they produce (such as endocrine and exocrine insufficiency), their associated morbidity and mortality, and their impact on the length and quality of life. Over the past 10 years, there has been some general improvement in the details provided by surgeons reporting the results of operations performed to relieve the pain of chronic pancreatitis. It has become standard to specify the length of follow-up, the incidence of postoperative exocrine and endocrine insufficiency, and change in weight and work status when reporting the operative results