Fatty Liver, Statin Therapy, and the Risk of Hypertriglyceridemic Acute Pancreatitis

Abstract

Objectives Identifying patients with severe hypertriglyceridemia (HTG) who are prone to developing hypertriglyceridemic pancreatitis (HTGP) is essential for facilitating preventative interventions. This research aims to explore which part of the HTG patients is easy to develop into HTGP. Materials and Methods An observational cohort study was conducted in patients with serum triglycerides (TGs) ≥ 5.65 mmol/L. Propensity score matching (PSM) and logistic regression were used to adjust for potential confounding factors. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were applied to evaluate the predictive potential for HTGP. Results A total of 283 patients were included finally with a PSM cohort consisting of 55 HTGP matched with 77 non-HTGP. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, fatty liver (FL) (odds ratio, 2.535; P = 0.019) showed statistically significant association with HTGP, whereas statin use was correlated with a lower rate of HTGP (odds ratio, 0.203; P = 0.009). Finally, the ROC analysis showed that the TGs threshold thought to be causal of HTGP in patients with FL was significantly lower (9.31 vs 14.67 mmol/L) than that in patients without FL. Conclusions Although with lower TGs levels, patients with FL are much more prone to generate HTGP, and our findings suggest a potential role of statin as protective agents against HTGP.