ChiRhoClin, Inc.

This is a 3-year prospective study too identify the role of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency in patients with abdominal pain who are undergoing upper endoscopy. An endoscopic pancreatic function test (ePFT) with secretin will be performed in children undergoing routine investigative EGD.
The goal of this study is to identify the role of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency in patients with abdominal pain who are undergoing upper endoscopy, who otherwise would be labelled as recurrent abdominal pain (RAP).

Acute pancreatitis is a frequently devastating pancreatic inflammatory process that results in extensive morbidity, mortality, and hospitalization costs. The incidence of acute pancreatitis has been increasing over the last decade with an overall mortality rate of 5%, although it may be as high as 30% in the most severe cases. It was the most common inpatient gastrointestinal diagnosis in 2009, totaling over 270,000 hospitalizations with estimated "inpatient costs" of over 2.5 billion dollars in the United States. However, despite the significant impact to both patients and the healthcare system, there is no proven pharmacologic therapy that improves important clinical outcomes in acute pancreatitis. The release of bicarbonate rich fluid into the pancreatic duct from the ductal cells is an important mechanism to protect against pancreatitis by two distinct mechanisms:
"Flushing" activated enzymes out of the pancreas and into the duodenum thereby preventing accumulation of activated enzymes within the pancreatic acinus
Directly alkalinizing the acinar cells, which limits intra-acinar cell damage by improving trafficking of inappropriately activated intra-acinar enzymes along the apical membrane.
In addition to standard care, patients will be divided into 4 cohorts. Cohorts 1,2 and 3 will be treated with different doses of intravenous synthetic human secretin. Cohort X will not receive human secretin, but all datapoints and specimens will be collected. The patient cohorts will be entered into the study as follows: Cohort X; Cohort 1; Cohort 2; Cohort 3. 5 patients in each cohort will be evaluated at each center (for a total of n=10 at both centers for each cohort). Dosing will start within 24 hours of hospitalization with no further synthetic human secretin administration beyond Day 3. Patients will continue to be followed for 7 days or until discharge, whichever comes first. Any data recorded to that point would be included in an intent-to-treat analysis. The primary objective is to perform a Phase II Pilot Study to explore the efficacy of intravenous synthetic human secretin as a pharmacologic adjunct to modulate the severity of human acute (non-obstructive) pancreatitis.

The goal of this research study is to learn more about the pancreas. The investigators want to use Magnetic Resonance Cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) to learn more about the size of a normal pancreas. MRCP is a special kind of MRI exam that produces detailed images of the pancreas. The investigators also want to figure out how much fluid the pancreas releases in response to secretin. Secretin is a chemical in the body that causes the pancreas to release fluid that helps with digestion. Secretin is used during the MRCP (MR-PFT) to help identify dysfunction of the pancreas. MR elastography (MRE) will be used to measure how hard the pancreas is. MRE is a special kind of MRI that uses vibrations to image tissue.