Increasing diagnosis rate and changing etiology in childhood pancreatitis; ten years of single-center experience from Turkey

INTRODUCTION: In this study, we aimed to evaluate the etiological, clinical, and laboratory characteristics of children with pancreatitis and the changes in these data over the years.


METHODS: Children, hospitalized with the diagnosis of pancreatitis between January 2011 and January 2021 were evaluated retrospectively. The etiology, demographic characteristics, laboratory findings, and changes over the years were analyzed.

RESULTS: : A total of 111 cases were enrolled, 72 (64.9%) in acute pancreatitis (AP) group and 39 (35.1%) in the acute recurrent pancreatitis and chronic pancreatitis (ARP-CP) group. The most common causes of AP were idiopathic (27.8%), cholelithiasis (26.4%), and infections (8.4%). In ARP and CP assessments, idiopathic (35.9%), trauma (15.4%), and drugs (10.3%) were the most frequent etiologies.
During the first five years, only 14 and 97 patients were diagnosed with pancreatitis in the second five years. In both, periods, the most frequent diagnosis was idiopathic pancreatitis (42.9% and 28.9%, respectively). While trauma (14.3%) and infections (14.3%) were the most common etiology in the first five years, cholelithiasis (20.6%) and drugs (9.3%) were the most common in the second five years.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: There was a significant increase between the first and the second five years in pancreatitis-related hospitalizations. The most common cause of pancreatitis in all groups was still unknown. The cholelithiasis ratio increased from 7.1% to 20.6% in the second five years. Also, drugs played a bigger role in pancreatitis at a high rate of 9.3% over the years. Moreover, it was emphasized that the administration of octreotide treatment has decreased over the years.