Search

Objective: Pediatric acute pancreatitis (AP) may be different from adult AP in various respects. This study focuses on the epidemiology and medical resource use of pediatric AP in Taiwan., Methods: Patients aged 0 to 18 years with AP were identified from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database based on the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision code of AP 577.0. The medical resource use was measured by length of hospital stay and hospital charges., Results: Between 2000 and 2013, a total of 2127 inpatient cases of pediatric AP were collected, which represented a hospitalization rate of 2.83 per 100,000 population. The incidence by age had 2 peaks, the first peak was at age 4 to 5 years old, and the second one started rising from 12 to 13 years old until adulthood. The incidence by year increased from 2.33 to 3.07 cases per 100,000 population during the study period. The average hospital stay is steady, but the medical cost is increasing. Girls have longer hospital stays, higher medical expenditures, more use of endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography possibly due to more comorbidities with biliary tract diseases than boys (P < 0.05). The mortality in cases of AP is mostly associated with systemic diseases rather than AP itself., Conclusions: The incidence of pediatric AP in Taiwan is in a rising trend. There are gender differences in length of hospital stay, medical costs, use of endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography and comorbidities.

Objectives: This study aimed to describe a 10-year epidemiological trend of patients with first-attack acute pancreatitis (AP) in Taiwan., Methods: We analyzed 107,349 patients with first-attack AP from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database between 2000 and 2009. Severe cases were defined according to a modified Atlanta classification. Incidence rates were standardized by direct method., Results: During the study period, the median age of the patients increased from 49 to 55 years and the proportion of men decreased from 66.8% to 62.3%. The averaged annual incidence of first-attack AP was estimated at 36.9 per 100,000 persons and changed only slightly. Stratified analyses showed that the incidence increased in children (<15 years), elderly people (≥ 65 years), and patients with biliary cause, but decreased in young to middle-aged men (15-64 years). The prevalence of severe cases increased from 21.0% to 22.3%, which was mainly caused by an increase of acute organ dysfunction (from 9.7% to 14.1%). Despite that, hospital mortality decreased from 4.3% to 3.3% for all cases and from 18.5% to 13.3% for severe ones., Conclusions: The overall incidence of first-attack AP changed slightly in Taiwan, which differs from the increasing trend observed in most Western countries. Although more patients had severe attacks in recent years, hospital mortality declined.