The Impacts of Obesity, Morbid Obesity on Acute Pancreatitis

The connection between morbid obesity and death from acute pancreatitis has been studied, however, most obese patient do not fall in the “morbid” category. So researchers decided to analyze that very topic.

Needless to say, obesity worsens a variety of health conditions. To evaluate its impact on acute pancreatitis, the team used the 2012 National Inpatient Sample which consists of 257,405 patients with the inflammatory condition. The findings were presented at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2016 in San Diego, California on May 21.

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A total 34,495 patients (13.4%) in the cohort were obese. About half of the participants were men and the average age was 52. Body mass index (BMI) determined if patients were obese class 1 (30 to 34.9), obese class 2 (35 to 39.9), or morbid obese (40 or more). Data was adjusted for age, sex, race, and regional factors, and the aim was to identify incidences of:

• In-hospital mortality
• Intensive care unit (ICU) admission
• Shock and multi-organ failure
• Resource utilization measured by abdominal CT scan
• Abdominal ultrasound (US)
• Total parenteral nutrition (TPN) use
• Length of hospital stay (LOS)
• Total hospitalization charges

In-hospital mortality rate was 0.8% and similar among obese and non-obese patients. Only morbidly obese patients had a higher risk of shock and ICU admission. However, both class 1 and class 2 obese patients had a higher risk of multi-organ failure.

“For resource utilization, obese and non-obese patients had similar odds of an abdominal CT scan,” the authors explained. “However, morbidly obese patients had higher odds of an abdominal US, and only class 1 obese patients had higher odds of TPN compared with non-obese patients.”

LOS was longer for class 1 obese and morbidly obese patients and all obese patients had higher total hospital charges.

Although in-hospital mortality rates did not differ among the obese and morbidly obese groups, there are clear differences in other health areas.

Also on MD Magazine >>> More news from Digestive Disease Week 2016