I have this one in full-text.
Prevalence of Pancreatic Insufficiency in Inflammatory Bowel
Diseases. Assessment by Fecal Elastase-1
Abstract Pancreatic insufficiency (PI) may be an extraintestinal
manifestation of inflammatory bowel diseases
(IBD). We report the results of a cross-sectional study that
was carried out to investigate both the prevalence of PI in
IBD patients and its clinical course over a 6-month followup
period. In total, 100 Crohn’s disease (CD) patients, 100
ulcerative colitis (UC) patients, and 100 controls were
screened for PI by the fecal elastase-1 (FE-1) test. The
decision limits employed were: £ 200 lg/g stool for PI
and £ 100 lg/g for severe PI. Patients with abnormal FE-1
values were re-tested after 6 months. Odds ratios (OR) for
PI were estimated by unconditional logistic regression
analysis. PI was found in 22 UC and 14 CD patients. The
OR for the FE-1 test £ 200 lg/g was 10.5 [95% confidence
interval (CI): 2.5–44.8] for IBD patients compared to
the controls. The risk of PI was related to three or more
bowel movements per day (OR = 25.0), the passage of
loose stools (OR = 7.7), and previous surgery (OR = 3.7).
At the 6-month follow-up, FE-1 values became normal in
24 patients and showed persistently low concentrations in
12. These patients had a larger number of bowel movements
per day (OR = 5.4), previous surgery (OR = 5.7),
and a longer duration of the disease (OR = 4.2). PI is
frequently found in IBD patients, particularly in those with
loose stools, a larger number of bowel movements/day and
previous surgery. PI is reversible in most patients, and
persistent
