Epidemiology of acute pancreatitis in Australia from 2007-2019

There is a paucity of information on the epidemiology of acute pancreatitis (AP) in Australia.

Data on hospital admissions for a principal diagnosis of AP were obtained from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare; population data were extracted from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Age-adjusted, and age and sex-specific rates for all subtypes of AP were compared.

There were 208  390 admissions for a principal diagnosis of AP in Australia between 2006/07 and 2018/19, corresponding to an average admission rate of 46.03/10⁵ /year. Over the study, there was a 38.7% increase in the age-adjusted rate of AP admissions [37.56 to 52.09/10⁵ /year (P < 0.00001)], corresponding to an average increase of 3.0%/year. Unspecified AP comprised approximately 50% of admissions in each year. An increase in admission rates was observed for all categories of AP. Biliary AP admission rates increased from 8.28 to 13.90 /10⁵ /year (P < 0.00001), increasing in both sexes and all age groups. Alcohol associated AP admissions increased from 8.23 to 9.98/10⁵ /year (P < 0.00001), a phenomenon which was seen in older people and in females particularly, but there was a reduction alcohol related AP admission rates in the 20-29-year age group.

AP admission rates increased significantly over the period 2006/07 to 2018/19 in both male and female populations, in most subtypes of AP, particularly 'unspecified AP', and among all age groups.