Acute Pancreatitis vs. Acute Recurrent Pancreatitis: Investigation of Clinical and Etiological Factors

Objective: It was aimed to evaluate the etiology, clinical, laboratory and imaging findings and treatment methods of patients who have admitted with acute pancreatitis (AP) and progressed to chronic pancreatitis (CP) with ARP (acute recurrent pancreatitis). Methods: The data of children under the age of 18 years who were admitted to our hospital between January 2013-July 2020 and were diagnosed with acute, acute recurrent or chronic pancreatitis according to INSPPIRE diagnostic criteria were evaluated retrospectively. Results: There were 77 patients who were followed-up with the diagnosis of acute pancreatitis. Pancreatitis attack did not recur in 53/77 patients and no underlying cause was found in 35.84% (19/53) of the patients. The most common factor in those whose cause could be determined was gallstones (15.1%) (8/53). The pancreatitis attack recurred in 24 (31%) of the patients. Congenital anomalies (9/24) and hereditary pancreatitis (5/24) were the most common causes of pancreatitis in these patients and these factors were a risk factor for the recurrence of pancreatitis attack. There was no difference between the groups in terms of complications (p=0.423); however, chronicity was more common in the group with ARP (p=0.003). Conclusion: Beside the pancreatitis is a rare disease in childhood, with the increase of awareness and increased accessibility to diagnostic imaging methods, more and more pancreatitis is diagnosed day by day. Idiopathic acute pancreatitis cases still constitute the largest group. If other causes are excluded in these cases, it is important to investigate congenital anomalies, genetic and metabolic etiologies.