The Applicability of a Checklist for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency: Results of the Italian Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency Registry

Abstract

Objective To evaluate a rapid checklist capable of identifying exocrine pancreatic insufficiency in outpatients. Methods Prospective observational study of a multicenter cohort. Results One hundred and two patients were enrolled; 61.8% of the patients had medically-treated benign or malignant pancreatic disease, and 38.2% had a pancreatic resection. Visual examination of the feces was evaluated in 84 patients and it was related to steatorrhea in 51 patients (50.0%). Receiver operating characteristic curves were evaluated for each symptom or clinical sign and four of them (ie, increase in daily bowel movements, number of bowel movements, fatty stools, >10% weight loss) had a satisfactory area under the curve. At multivariate analysis, fatty stools and >10% weight loss entered into this analysis having an area under the curve of 0.916 (95% confidence interval, 0.851-0.981). At 1 month and at one year of follow-up, the pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy administered showed that pancreatic extracts were able to significantly improve the increase in daily bowel movements, the number of bowel movements, fatty and bulky stools and >10% weight loss. Conclusion Both fatty stools and >10% weight loss were able to clinically evaluate steatorrhea, and their improvement was sufficient to evaluate substitution therapy. © 2020 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.