Is alcoholic pancreatitis associated with enteroviral infection

AIM: To investigate whether enteroviral infection might trigger acute pancreatitis in patients made susceptible due to high alcohol consumption. METHODS: Patients with alcohol-induced acute pan-creatitis were analyzed for signs of simultaneous or preceding enteroviral infection. We studied the serum samples of 40 patients hospitalized for alcohol-induced acute pancreatitis and 40 controls recruited from an alcohol detoxification center. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to detect enterovirus RNA and diagnose acute viremia. Immuno-globulin G (IgG), immunoglobulin A (IgA) and immuno-globulin M (IgM) enteroviral antibodies were measured using enzyme immunoassay to detect subacute andprevious infections. The samples were considered posi-tive when the antibody titers were≥15 IU. Further-more, using RT-PCR, we studied pancreatic biopsy sam-ples obtained during surgery from nine patients with chronic pancreatitis, one patient with acute pancreatitis and ten control patients with pancreatic carcinoma for evidence of persisting enteroviral RNA in the pancreatic tissue. RESULTS: No enterovirus RNA indicating acute viremia was detected by RT-PCR in the serum samples of any patient or control. A high incidence of positive antibody titers was observed in both study groups: IgM antibod-ies had positive titers in 5/40 (13%) vs 4/40 (10%), P=0.723; IgG in 15/40 (38%) vs 19/40 (48%), P=0.366; and IgA in 25/40 (63%) vs 33/40 (83%), P=0.045, patients and controls, respectively. Ten (25%) patients had severe pancreatitis and two (5%) required treatment in intensive care. The median length of hos-pitalization was 7 d (range: 3-47 d). The severity of acute pancreatitis or the length of hospitalization was not associated with enteroviral IgM, IgG or IgA anti-bodies. Five pancreatic biopsy samples tested positive with RT-PCR, three (8%) in the control group and two (5%) in the patient group (P=0.64). CONCLUSION: The rate of enteroviral infection is not increased in patients with alcohol-induced acute p