Update on the effect of age on acute pancreatitis morbidity: a retrospective, single-center study

Acute pancreatitis (AP) is one of the urgent diseases of gastroenterology. Due to the growth of the elderly population, the frequency of the disease in the elderly population is also increasing.

To evaluate the contributing factors of mortality in geriatric patients (age ≥ 65 years) and non-geriatric (age < 65 years) patients.

We retrospectively analyzed data of consecutive patients with AP, in the Adana Numune Education and Research Hospital between March 2013 and September 2015.

Of the 602 patients studied, 405 were female and 197 were male and their mean age was 55.2 ±19.5 years. The most common etiological factors were biliary stone, hyperlipidemia and alcohol, respectively. Two hundred and four patients were in the geriatric group and 394 patients were in the non-geriatric group. 84.4% of patients had mild AP, and 15.6% of patients had moderate to severe AP according to the revised Atlanta classification. 91.7% of non-geriatric patients had mild AP while 70.7% of geriatric patients had mild AP (p < 0.001). 29.4% of geriatric patients had moderate-to-severe AP while 8.4% of non-geriatric patients had moderate-severe AP. Duration of hospital stay was 6.2 ±3 days and 5.3 ±2.3 days in geriatric and non-geriatric groups respectively (p < 0.001). Mortality was higher in the geriatric group than the non-geriatric group (9.6% vs. 0.5%, respectively) (p < 0.001).

Acute pancreatitis in the geriatric population shows a more severe course than the non-geriatric population. Geriatric patients have longer duration of hospital stay and higher mortality than non-geriatric patients.