The influence of gender on the risk factors of acute pancreatitis in northeastern Austria

Background Acute pancreatitis is a potentially life-threatening disease and a great economic burden of health care systems. Multiple risk factors can evoke pancreatitis and often multifactorial genesis must be suspected in the absence of a predominant cause. Biliary obstruction and alcohol abuse are the most common aetiologies and, furthermore, gender differences have been reported. We aimed to investigate differences in risk factors for acute pancreatitis between sexes in the population of northeastern Austria.

Methods The St.Pölten Pancreatitis Registry, launched in November 2018, was analysed with regard to gender and causes of the disease. In this register therapy, aetiopathology, endoscopic interventions and course of disease are recorded for quality control and improvement. After informed consent all patients treated at our outpatient clinic who suffered from acute pancreatitis are included.

Results Between November 2018 and February 2020 66 patients were recruited and their data examined (33 male, 33 female), mean age: 57 (SD ± 16) years, mean BMI: 29 (SD ± 8) kg/m2. Alcohol and combined abuse with nicotine (9 of 22 cases of alcohol abuse) showed to be the most common risk factor followed by biliary obstruction in 19 cases. Alcohol abuse was more frequent in men than in women, while biliary obstruction was the leading cause in the latter ([Table 1]). However, differences showed not to be significant.

Conclusion In our study no significant differences between male and female could be shown in regards to genesis of acute pancreatitis. However, a trend suggests that the disease is more often associated with gallstones in women and alcohol in men. Overall, alcohol abuse was the most common risk factor. We look forward to update this analysis with greater numbers in the future.

Tab. 1

Risk factor distribution according to gender (n = 66), 52 % showed at least two risk factors.

Risk Factor	Female	Male	Sum
Alcohol	8	14	22
Obstruction	12	7	19
Nicotine	8	11	19 (9 with alcohol abuse)
Iatrogenic	11	8	19[*]
Hypertriglyceridemia	3	4	7
Idiopathic	2	4	6
Autoimmune pancreatitis	2	4	6
Anatomic anomaly	2	1	3
Family history	2	1	3
Other autoimmune disease	2	0	2
Viral	1	0	1
Genetics	0	0	0
Tumor	0	0	0

^* *post-ERCP pancreatitis and medication

Publikationsverlauf

Artikel online veröffentlicht:
01. September 2021