The aetiology and clinical characteristics of 42 patients affected with chronic calcifying pancreatitis in a Sicilian population were investigated and compared with a series of other Italian and foreign reports. It was found that the aetiology was 62% alcoholics and 38% idiopathic in origin and that the M/F ratio was 2.5:1. Clinical features as pain, weight loss, pancreatic calcifications, steatorrhea, pseudocysts and associated cirrhosis are significantly more frequent in the group of alcoholics, while cholelithiasis was more frequent in the non-alcoholic group. Two aspects are worth noting in comparison to the north of Italy: a) the lesser frequency of alcoholic forms and b) the high incidence of women.