SEVERITY OF ACUTE-PANCREATITIS - RELATIONSHIP WITH ETIOLOGY, SEX AND AGE

BACKGROUND/AIMS: To correlate the severity of acute pancreatitis with the etiology, age and sex of the patients. METHODOLOGY: 158 consecutiv e acute pancreatitis patients (92 males, 66 females; mean age 59.7+/-1 8.1 years; mean+/-SD) who were admitted to our Emergency Department be tween January 1991 and March 1995 were included in this study. The dia gnosis of acute pancreatitis was made on the basis of the characterist ic abdominal pain associated with hyperamylasemia and hyperlipasemia a nd was further confirmed by ultrasonography and/or computed tomography findings. RESULTS: Acute pancreatitis was associated with biliary dis ease in 112 patients (70.9%), due to alcohol abuse in 26 patients (16. 5%), due to other causes in 8 (5.1%), and was of unknown origin in 12 (7.6%). On the basis of the Atlanta criteria, 110 patients (69.6%) wer e diagnosed as having mild acute pancreatitis and 48 (30.4%) as having the severe form of the disease. The age of the males was significantl y lower than that of females; the age of patients with biliary pancrea titis was significantly higher than that of the overall population, wh ereas the age of patients with acute pancreatitis due to other causes was significantly lower. A significantly higher frequency of acute bil iary pancreatitis was found in females (97.0%) as compared to males (5 2.2%), while alcoholic pancreatitis and pancreatitis due to other caus es was present only in males (28.3% and 8.7%, respectively). CONCLUSIO NS: An age greater than 55 years, the male sex, pancreatitis of unknow n origin and alcoholic pancreatitis were positively associated with th e severity of the disease.