Individuals With Chronic Pancreatitis At Risk for Diabetes

People who live with chronic pancreatitis (CP) are at risk of developing diabetes based on multiple factors, according to the results of a recent study.

The goal of the study was to establish the factors associated with patients with CP and the possibility of being diagnosed with diabetes—a gap in our knowledge that, the authors note, needs to be filled.

A cross-sectional study included 645 individuals with CP enrolled in the Prospective Evaluation of Chronic Pancreatitis for Epidemiologic and Translational Studies (PROCEED) study. Of the total, 276 patients had diabetes. The researchers conducted univariable and multivariable regression analyses of potential risk factors for CP patients developing diabetes.

For the study, the exploratory data analyses were formed according to the time diabetes developed in a patient relative to the diagnosis of pancreatitis.

In their study, the authors compared the factors that are known to increase the risk of type 2 diabetes, which included overweight/obese status, male sex, non-White race, and tobacco use. Further, the researchers looked at pancreatic disease-related factors, which included history of acute pancreatitis complications, nonalcoholic etiology of CP, exocrine pancreatic dysfunction, pancreatic calcification, and pancreatic atrophy.

The researchers found that the risk factors associated with type 2 diabetes and pancreas-specific features may predict which patients with CP have the possibility of developing diabetes.

“Multiple factors are associated with diabetes in CP, including canonical risk factors for type 2 diabetes and features associated with pancreatitis severity,” the researchers concluded. “This study lays the groundwork for the future development of models integrating clinical and nonclinical data to identify patients with CP at risk for diabetes and identifies modifiable risk factors—obesity, smoking—on which to focus for diabetes prevention.”

—Jessica Ganga

Reference:

Jeon C, Hart PA, Li L, et al. Development of a clinical prediction model for diabetes in chronic pancreatitis: the PREDICT3c study. Diabetes Care. Published online November 16, 2022. doi:10.2337/dc22-1414