Informative Patterns of Health-Care Utilization Prior to the Diagnosis of Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma.

Early-detection tests for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) are needed. Since a hypothetical screening test would be applied during antecedent clinical encounters, we sought to define the variability in health-care utilization leading up to PDAC diagnosis. This was a retrospective cohort study that included patients diagnosed with PDAC in the Indianapolis, Indiana, area between 1999 and 2013 with at least 1 health-care encounter during the antecedent 36-month period (n = 1,023). Patients were classified by unique patterns of health-care utilization using a group-based trajectory model. The prevalences of PDAC signals, such as diabetes mellitus (DM) and chronic pancreatitis, were compared. Four distinct trajectories were identified, the most common (42.0%) being having few clinical encounters more than 6 months prior to PDAC diagnosis (late acceleration). In all cases, a minority of persons had DM (30.6%, with 9.5% <1.5 years before PDAC) or any pancreatic disorder (39.9%); these were least common in the late-acceleration group (DM, 14.7%; any pancreatic disorder, 32.1% (P < 0.001)). The most common pattern of antecedent care was having few clinical encounters until shortly before PDAC diagnosis. Since the majority of patients diagnosed with PDAC do not have an antecedent PDAC signal, early-detection strategies limited to these groups may not apply to the majority of cases.

Evaluation of patients with abnormalities on intraoperative cholangiogram: time to abandon endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography as the initial follow-up study.

BACKGROUND: Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) is currently the method of choice for the postoperative evaluation of suspected bile duct stones seen on intraoperative cholangiogram (IOC); however, the sensitivity of IOC for identifying biliary pathology is unclear, with studies reporting false positive rates between 30% and 60%. OBJECTIVE: Evaluate the sensitivity of IOC for biliary pathology, using ERCP with sphincterotomy and balloon sweep as gold standard. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. SETTING: Tertiary medical centre. PATIENTS: 130 consecutive patients (age 51.3±1.7 years, 69.2% women) who underwent ERCP for the evaluation of abnormalities identified on IOC between 2005 and 2013. INTERVENTIONS: Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography. MAIN OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS: Sensitivity of IOC, identify predictors of positive postoperative ERCP and ERCP-related complications. RESULTS: ERCP was successful in all 130 subjects. ERCP-related adverse events occurred in six (4.3%) patients, including self-limited post-sphincterotomy bleeding in three (2.3%) and mild post-ERCP pancreatitis in three (2.3%). Overall, 41 (31.5%) patients had normal cholangiogram at time of ERCP. Finding of a filling defect on IOC was the only predictor for the presence of common bile duct stones on postoperative ERCP (OR 3.3, 95% CI 1.0 to 10.8, p=0.05). LIMITATIONS: Retrospective study design. CONCLUSIONS: Nearly one-third of patients with abnormal IOC had a normal postoperative ERCP. Significant pathology could have been missed in 1/130 patients. Based on these findings, we believe the use of less-invasive diagnostic modalities may be used in place of ERCP in patients with suspected choledocholithiasis on IOC.

Development and Validation of a Prediction Model for Admission After Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: In outpatients undergoing endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) with anesthesia, rates of and risk factors for admission are unclear. We aimed to develop a model that would allow physicians to predict hospitalization of patients during postanesthesia recovery. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective study of data from ERCPs performed on outpatients from May 2012 through October 2013 at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Medical records were abstracted for preanesthesia, intra-anesthesia, and early (within the first hour) postanesthesia characteristics potentially associated with admission. Significant factors associated with admission were incorporated into a logistic regression model to identify subgroups with low, moderate, or high probabilities for admission. The population was divided into training (first 12 months) and validation (last 6 months) sets to develop and test the model. RESULTS: We identified 3424 ERCPs during the study period; 10.7% of patients were admitted to the hospital, and 3.7% developed post-ERCP pancreatitis. Postanesthesia recovery times were significantly longer for patients requiring admission (362.6 ± 213.0 minutes vs 218.4 ± 71.8 minutes for patients not admitted; P < .0001). A higher proportion of admitted patients had high-risk indications. Admitted patients also had more severe comorbidities, higher baseline levels of pain, longer procedure times, performance of sphincter of Oddi manometry, higher pain during the first hour after anesthesia, and greater use of opiates or anxiolytics. A multivariate regression model identified patients who were admitted with a high level of accuracy in the training set (area under the curve, 0.83) and fair accuracy in the validation set (area under the curve, 0.78). On the basis of this model, nearly 50% of patients could be classified as low risk for admission. CONCLUSION: By using factors that can be assessed through the first hour after ERCP, we developed a model that accurately predicts which patients are likely to be admitted to the hospital. Rates of admission after outpatient ERCP are low, so a policy of prolonged observation might be unnecessary.