Vascular Complications in Patients with Chronic Pancreatitis

Chronic pancreatitis (CP) is a long-standing progressive inflammation of the pancreas, which can lead to a variety of vascular complications, such as splanchnic venous thrombosis (VT) and arterial pseudoaneurysm (PA). There is a lack of studies on vascular complications in Scandinavian countries.

We performed a retrospective analysis of medical records of patients with CP identified from the Karolinska University Hospital database between 2003 and 2018. A total of 394 patients with definite CP were included in the study.

There were 33 patients with vascular complications, with a median age of 62 (IQR 55-72) years. The cumulative incidence of vascular events was 3.2% at 5 years. Thirty patients had isolated VT, whereas three patients had PA (7.6% and 0.8%, respectively). Isolated splenic vein thrombosis was most common (53.3%), followed by a combination with other splanchnic veins. PA was found in the splenic artery in two patients and in the left gastric artery in one patient. Varices were present in three (10%) patients; variceal bleeding was not recorded. All patients had asymptomatic splanchnic VT, most with chronic VT with developed collaterals (83.3% had abdominal collateral vessels). Nearly two-thirds of patients with VT (63.3%) received no treatment, whereas 11 (36.6%) were treated with anticoagulants. Pseudocysts and alcoholic etiology of CP are risk factors for vascular complications.

The cumulative incidence of vascular complications was 3.2% at 5 years. Splanchnic VT is more common than PA. Patients were asymptomatic with no variceal bleeding, explained by well-developed collateral vessels and strong study inclusion criteria.