Objective To study the basic and clinical achievements in diagnosis and therapy of hereditary pancreatitis. Methods Related literatures of recent years were reviewed. Results Hereditary pancreatitis was a rare type of pancreatitis, with an estimated penetrance of 80%, and was believed to be caused by a mutation in the cationic trypsinogen gene. Patients with hereditary pancreatitis had a high frequency of pancreatic cancer.Conclusion The progress has been made on hereditary pancreatitis and has given us many useful suggestions for a better understanding about this difficult medical problem.