INVESTIGATIONS INTO HYPERLIPIDEMIA AND ITS POSSIBLE ...

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the understanding of the function of the pancreas, pancreatitis in humans was described
in more detail as a disease entity in the late 19 th century. 139 Following that, several
studies of experimentally induced pancreatitis in dogs were reported, which initially had
the sole goal to study human disease in canine models. 140-143
However, later,
experimental studies were also designed to study canine disease. 144-149 Although these
experimental studies provided some initial information about pancreatitis in dogs, it was
later recognized that experimentally-induced pancreatitis does not mirror the
spontaneous disease. This lack of clinical applicability of findings from experimental
studies as well as the invasiveness of experimentally-induced pancreatitis dramatically
limited the number of such studies.
Before the 1930s, canine pancreatitis was either not mentioned as a disease entity
in veterinary textbooks at all or it only was mentioned in veterinary pathology textbooks
as an extremely rare condition that was only diagnosed during necropsy. 150 The first
reports of spontaneous canine pancreatitis in English were published in the 1930s and
1940s, and up until the 1950s each described isolated or a very small number of
cases. 151-153 The first published case series that investigated canine pancreatitis in more
detail appeared in the 1960s. 61
These studies provided the first comprehensive
information on clinical presentation and histopathology of canine pancreatitis. Due to the
lack of sensitive and specific tests for the diagnosis of canine pancreatitis in a clinical
setting at that time, the diagnosis was based almost solely on necropsy and
histopathologic findings and therefore these studies included mainly patients with severe
pancreatitis that either died or were euthanized as a result of pancreatitis. Several studies