Immune Responses Associated with Acute Pancreatitis
Abstract
Acute pancreatitis (AP) is the most common cause for gastrointestinal-related hospital admissions. It can follow a severe course that leads to 10%-30% mortality in high-risk patients, and in the United States alone, it accounts for over 220,000 hospital admissions every year. Despite the disease burden, therapy remains supportive at best, and removal of precipitating factors that may include alcohol or obstructing gall bladder stones. Most treatment trials, although showing promise in experimental studies, have not been successfully translated to clinical use, in part due to a major drawback in pancreatitis research where there is lack of understanding of inflammatory responses. Inflammation leads to perpetuating events that occur over the disease spectrum from early to late stages. Studies again are lacking to understand the immune responses in the different stages of disease and also what pathways may enhance recovery. As a result, we propose to study the disease from early to late stage and shift in immune response associated with recovery from AP. Understanding these underlying mechanisms is likely to improve our understanding of immune pathways that promote recovery and resolution of the inflammation. In addition to the gained understanding of immune mechanisms that mediate and/or allow progression of AP versus recovery, additional impact of this project includes its translational significance, as our studies may lead to the development of novel therapies that can alter clinical practice in a disease for which no active therapy is currently available. Thus, the proposed project directly relates to one Fiscal Year 2016 Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program topic area, namely, pancreatitis and addresses two out of the three areas of encouragement listed under pancreatitis. Our proposed studies are novel because they focus on the immune interactions (previously not well studied) and have the potential to shift paradigm in the field with the hopes of leading to novel therapies that can alter the natural course of the disease. The short-term impact of our proposed project is the gained understanding of immune mechanisms that mediate and/or allow progression of and recovery from acute pancreatitis. Our preliminary results identify immune mechanisms that can be targeted. The potential long-term impact is of great clinical significance in a disease where there is currently no active therapy. If successful, the study has potential for identifying novel immune therapies for AP that can be translated into clinical use. AP is also a risk for developing chronic pancreatitis, which in turn is a risk factor for pancreatic cancer and understanding immune responses in-depth herein could advance the pancreas field.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 07, 2017
- Source ID
- W81XWH1710339
Entities
People
- Aida Habtezion
Organizations
- Stanford University
- United States Army