Endoscopic methods for the diagnosis of chronic pancreatitis

Diagnosing chronic pancreatitis (CP) is challenging, particularly in patients with chronic abdominal pain but no obvious pancreatic insufficiency or calcifications. A variety of methods are available to diagnose and stage CP, but no gold standard currently exists, and diagnostic criteria are reliable only in severe CP. This review will focus on endoscopic methods for diagnosing early CP including endoscopic retrograde pancreatography (ERP), endoscopic ultrasound (EUS), and endoscopic pancreatic function testing (ePFT). These methods are often used in combination to diagnose or exclude CP. Although there are a variety of methods available, diagnosing mild and moderate CP remains a challenge, and further refinements of diagnostic criteria are needed to advance the field of endoscopic diagnosis of CP.