Wan YD, Zhu RX, Bian ZZ, Sun TW. Effect of probiotics on length of hospitalization in mild acute pancreatitis: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. World J Gastroenterol 2021; 27(2): 224-232 [PMID: 33510561 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i2.224]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Tong-Wen Sun, MD, Chief Doctor, Professor, Integrated Intensive Care Unit, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, No. 1 Jianshe East Road, Zhengzhou 450052, Henan Province, China. wanyoudong123@163.com
Research Domain of This Article
Emergency Medicine
Article-Type of This Article
Randomized Controlled Trial
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 14, 2021; 27(2): 224-232 Published online Jan 14, 2021. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i2.224
Effect of probiotics on length of hospitalization in mild acute pancreatitis: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial
You-Dong Wan, Rui-Xue Zhu, Zhong-Zheng Bian, Tong-Wen Sun
You-Dong Wan, Tong-Wen Sun, Integrated Intensive Care Unit, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, Henan Province, China
Rui-Xue Zhu, Health Management Centre, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao 266000, Shandong Province, China
Zhong-Zheng Bian, Department of Emergency Medicine, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao 266000, Shandong Province, China
Author contributions: Wan YD wrote the paper; Wan YD and Zhu RX collected and analyzed the data; Wan YD, Zhu RX, Bian ZZ, and Sun TW designed the study, critically reviewed the manuscript, and approved the final version.
Supported byNational Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81370364.
Institutional review board statement: The study was ethically approved by the Ethics Committee of The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University.
Clinical trial registration statement: The trial was registered in the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR2000030425).
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
CONSORT 2010 statement: The authors have read the CONSORT Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CONSORT Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Tong-Wen Sun, MD, Chief Doctor, Professor, Integrated Intensive Care Unit, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, No. 1 Jianshe East Road, Zhengzhou 450052, Henan Province, China. wanyoudong123@163.com
Received: November 5, 2020 Peer-review started: November 5, 2020 First decision: November 25, 2020 Revised: November 29, 2020 Accepted: December 16, 2020 Article in press: December 16, 2020 Published online: January 14, 2021 Processing time: 67 Days and 0.6 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Acute pancreatitis is the leading cause of hospitalization for acute gastrointestinal disease worldwide. The effects of probiotics in mild acute pancreatitis have not been studied. We hypothesized that the administration of probiotics may accelerate the recovery of intestinal function and shorten the length of hospital stay (LOS) in patients with mild pancreatitis.
AIM
To investigate the value of probiotics in reducing the LOS in patients with mild acute pancreatitis.
METHODS
We conducted a double-blind randomized clinical trial to evaluate the effects of probiotics administered to patients with mild acute pancreatitis at a tertiary medical center. The patients were given probiotics capsules (a mixed preparation of Bacillus subtilis and Enterococcus faecium) or placebo. The primary study endpoint was the LOS. The secondary endpoints included time to abdominal pain relief, recurrent abdominal pain, and time to successful oral feeding.
RESULTS
A total of 128 patients were included, with 64 patients in each arm. The severity of illness and the etiological distribution of disease were similar in the two groups. There was a significant reduction in the LOS in the probiotics treatment group vs the placebo group (5.36 ± 0.15 vs 6.02 ± 0.17 d, P < 0.05). The probiotics group was associated with a shorter time to abdominal pain relief and time to successful oral feeding (P < 0.01 for both) than the placebo group. No statistical difference was found in recurrent abdominal pain between the two groups.
CONCLUSION
The study results showed that the administration of probiotics capsules is associated with a shorter duration of hospitalization in patients with mild acute pancreatitis.
Core Tip: Acute pancreatitis is the leading cause of hospitalization for acute gastrointestinal diseases. Probiotics are widely used for intestinal diseases, although its effect on mild acute pancreatitis has not been studied. This is the first study to explore the effect of probiotics in mild pancreatitis patients. The results indicated that probiotics were associated with decreased length of hospitalization.
