Detailed characteristics of patients with first-time acute pancreatitis in a 10-year single center consecutive cohort in southern Sweden (DeCAP)
Caroline Bjarnevik, Martina Sjöbeck, Natalia Sande, Hanna Sternby, Isabel Drake, Sara RegnérAbstract
Introduction
The Detailed Characteristics of a first-time Acute Pancreatitis cohort during 10 years (DeCAP) was established to study both short- and long-term outcomes following acute pancreatitis. It also provides the possibility to study risk factors associated with the development of acute pancreatitis and the severity of the disease.
Methods
DeCAP is an unselected cohort of consecutive patients with first-time acute pancreatitis at Skåne University hospital, Sweden (2009–2018). It contains 2188 patients with pancreatitis and 10 938 pancreatitis-free individuals matched on sex and age using registry linkage. Medical records were reviewed from index admission to 31 December 2024. Recurrent episodes of acute pancreatitis, including treatment, severity, etiology and development of chronic pancreatitis or diabetes was recorded until death, emigration or end of study.
Results
The proportion of patients with moderately severe or severe disease differs by etiologies. Patients who experienced moderately severe or severe pancreatitis during their first episode had a fivefold higher likelihood of developing moderately severe or severe disease during a subsequent episode compared with patients whose initial event was mild.
Discussion
DeCAP combined with the unique national registers in Sweden will be used to to identify risk factors present at the index admission that may influence individual patient trajectories. Improved risk stratification is essential to enable more individualized follow-up strategies aimed at optimizing long-term outcomes while minimizing unnecessary resource utilization. More specifically, we plan to study short- and long-term morbidity, mortality, and recurrence related to individual risk factors. Further, the impact of socio-economic factors and ethnicity on these outcomes will be analyzed.