Medical treatment of pancreatic insufficiency

Treatment of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency with the use of eight tablets of pancreatin with meals consisting of 25 g of fat per meal will generally abolish azotorrhea. Although steatorrhea is not totally corrected, satisfactory nutritional status and relative relief of symptoms are usually achieved. For the occasional patient who continues to lose weight or remains symptomatic even after reduction of dietary fat, the addition of cimetidine to the standard pancreatin treatment will usually provide relief from the steatorrhea and alleviate troublesome diarrhea. In certain circumstances in which gastric pH is more than 4 for 1 hour after a meal, altering the dosage schedule to two tablets hourly may be effective in alleviating the steatorrhea. Conversely, in patients whose upper gastrointestinal tract is acidic for long periods postprandially (gastric pH less than 5, duodenal pH less than 4), Pancrease, an enteric-coated preparation, may be effective. In difficult cases in which symptoms and steatorrhea continue, special intraluminal studies need to be performed to ensure that intraluminal conditions are, in fact, present for certain dosage schedules to be effective or that intraluminal conditions have been altered by adjunctive therapy.