SUMMARY

Chronic pancreatitis is characterized by inflammation and fibro-sis leading to tissue destruction; in industrialized nations, alco-hol abuse is the cause of 70-80 % of cases of pancreatitis in adults. The purpose of the current work was to determine whether free radical adducts are produced by the pancreas during the early phases of chronic exposure to ethanol. Accord-ingly, rats were chronically fed ethanol using the model of continuous enteral infusion developed by Tsukamoto et a!. [Am. J. Physiol. 247: R595-R599 (1984)]. Histological evaluation re-vealed only mild acinar steatosis and spotty necrosis after 4 weeks of alcohol treatment; the pancreatic enzymes lipase and amylase were not elevated. Furthermore, no fibrosis was de-tected, nor were there differences in pancreatic collagen al (I) mRNA levels between the dietary control and ethanol-treated groups. After 4 weeks, rats were injected with the spin tra