Antioxidant therapy in chronic pancreatitis—promises and pitfalls

Chronic pancreatitis (CP) is a progressive, inflammatory disease of the pancreas, in which pathogenesis, oxidative stress led to progressive fibrosis accompanied with pancreatic functional insufficiency and intractable pain, and miserably impended the risk of pancreatic cancer (1,2). In this matter of oxidative stress relevant to CP, Singh et al. (3) published the results after randomized controlled trial (RCT) that though antioxidants supplementation increased blood levels of antioxidant in CP, they had no addition benefit over on endocrine and exocrine functions, markers of fibrosis, inflammation, nutritional status, pain, and quality of life (3). In a similar study investigating the efficacy and adverse effects of antioxidant therapy in acute pancreatitis (AP), CP and post-endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography pancreatitis (PEP) by Gooshe et al. (4) through meta-analysis, there is some evidence to support the efficacy of antioxidant therapy only in AP, whereas its effect on CP and PEP is still controversial. Stimulated with these findings, in this editorial, the assessment of antioxidants in CP was done to put promises and pitfalls of antioxidant therapy in CP.