Clinical manifestations of patients with chronic pancreatitis.
BACKGROUND
Recent advances in molecular and genomic technologies and pancreatic imaging techniques provided some insights into genetic, environmental, immunologic, and pathobiological factors for chronic pancreatitis (CP). This study was undertaken to investigate the clinical manifestations of patients with chronic pancreatitis at our hospital.


METHODS
The data of the patients with CP who had been treated at our hospital between 1997 and 2004 were analyzed.


RESULTS
The major symptoms of the patients with CP were abdominal pain, dyspepsia, loss of weight, diabetes mellitus, pancreatic pseudocyst, steatorrhea, and calcification. Biliary diseases were found to be the first cause of CP in this study; but alcohol abuse was the major cause of CP in men and biliary diseases were the first etiological factors for CP in women. The etiological difference of constituent ratio between men and women was related to alcohol consumption (P<0.01).


CONCLUSIONS
During the past 8 years, biliary diseases have been the major etiological factors for CP, but their constituent ratio is decreasing, and the constituent ratio of alcohol abuse is increasing gradually. Alcohol tends to replace biliary diseases as the primary etiological factor for CP.
Department of Gastroenterology, First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 310003, China. chenweixing@hotmail.com
Wei-Xing
WX
Chen
Wei-Fang
WF
Zhang
Bo
B
Li
Hui-Jia
HJ
Lin
Xian
X
Zhang
Hong-Tan
HT
Chen
Zhu-Ying
ZY
Gu
You-Ming
YM
Li
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000150:complications; D001660:Biliary Tract Diseases / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis; D001706:Biopsy; D002760:Cholangiopancreatography, Endoscopic Retrograde; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D050500:Pancreatitis, Chronic / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed