Hari Kumar KVS, et al. - The main purpose of this paper was to examine the amount of visceral adipose tissue (VAT) in patients with chronic pancreatitis (CP). The results of this study showed that VAT was a determinant in the development of diabetes, even in patients with CP. Findings revealed that dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) was a better modality for VAT estimation in comparison to bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA).

Methods

• It was a cross-sectional, observational study.
• Serial patients with CP seen between January 2015 and June 2016 were involved in this examination.
• After that, the study population was divided into alcoholic CP (group 1; N = 67) and tropical CP (group 2; N = 35).
• VAT was evaluated utilizing bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA) and dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) methods.
• The outcomes were analyzed by appropriate statistical methods.

Results

• According to the findings obtained, the study members (85 male, 17 female) had a mean (SD) age of 40.8 (12.6) years, CP duration of 3.7 (4.7) years, and body mass index of 22.5 (3.2) kg/m².
• Data reported that pancreatogenic diabetes was seen in fifty-four patients and the total body fat percentage was lower in the alcoholic CP group.
• It was found that VAT mass was similar in both the groups (p = 0.8749).
• Results revealed that CP patients with diabetes had a higher VAT mass (436 vs. 341 g) than those without diabetes (p = 0.0132).
• The authors discovered that DEXA and BIA correlated in estimation of total body fat (p < 0.0001) but not in VAT (p = 0.0922).