title: A Report of 320 Cases of Childhood Pancreatitis: Increasing Incidence, Etiologic Categorization, Dynamics, Severity Assessment, and Outcome.
abstract: Because there is paucity of data on natural history of pediatric pancreatitis, we studied prevalence, etiology, severity, and outcome of pancreatitis.
  
  
  
  Over 12 years consecutive children with pancreatitis were included. Pancreatitis was classified as acute (AP), acute recurrent (ARP), and chronic pancreatitis (CP) as per standard definitions.
  
  
  
  The study group comprised of 320 children (age, 11.4 ± 3.5 years, 201 males); AP, 160 (50%); ARP, 67 (21%); and CP, 93 (29%). The number of cases increased progressively from 28 to 157 between first and last quarter, and there was a significant increase (r = 0.92, P < 0.001) in AP-related hospitalizations over the years. Half of AP were idiopathic, 69% had severe pancreatitis (6 died) and on follow-up (21.1 ± 20.9 months) 21.5% progressed to either ARP (n = 8) or CP (n = 24). Progression was significantly associated with idiopathic etiology. The majority of ARP (70%) and CP (88%) were idiopathic and on follow-up (23.2 ± 28.9 months) 22% of ARP developed CP.
  
  
  
  There was 7-fold increase in number of hospitalization due to pancreatitis over the years. Progression of AP to ARP/CP was noted in 21.5% and ARP to CP in 22%. Thus, a subset of pancreatitis seems to be a continuum of acute to ARP and CP.
authors.affiliation: From the Departments of *Pediatric Gastroenterology, and †Radiology, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, India.
authors.forename: Ujjal
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Poddar
authors.forename: Surender Kumar
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Yachha
authors.forename: Vibhor
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Borkar
authors.forename: Anshu
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Srivastava
authors.forename: Sheo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kumar
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010195:Pancreatitis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy; D050500:Pancreatitis, Chronic / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy; D015995:Prevalence; D012720:Severity of Illness Index