Table 1 Summary of key findings in the literature
Topic of interest | Key findings |
|---|---|
Abdominal pain | • Abdominal pain is a frequently reported symptom (e.g., reported by 84% of patients in 1 study) |
GI symptoms | • Most commonly reported GI symptoms are bloating (64%), flatulence (33%), bowel movement/stool symptoms (e.g., diarrhea [75%], change in stool color [51%], fatty stools [49%], constipation [48%], bowel urgency [33%]), and dietary symptoms (e.g., weight loss [67%], loss of appetite [33%]) • Steatorrhea can only generally be reduced by 60–70% using PERT |
HRQoL | • Severity of abdominal pain, chronic pancreatic diarrhea, low body weight, and loss of work independently contributed to the physical component score of the Short Form-36 (adjusted R2 = 33.8%) |
Emotional functioning | • No articles related to emotional functioning related to EPI were located |
Comorbidities | • Most common comorbidities included diabetes, pancreatic resections and other pancreatic interventions, severe/acute pancreatitis, chronic pancreatitis, and other GI disorders |
PERT | • Commonly used efficacy endpoints included coefficient of fat absorption, body weight, HRQoL measures, and clinical symptoms |