Intravenous bolus somatostatin after diagnostic cholangiopancreatography reduces the incidence of pancreatitis associated with therapeutic endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography procedures: a randomised controlled trial

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Somatostatin in the context of pancreatitis (after the acute phase).

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

In a randomised, double blind, controlled trial, the effect of intravenous bolus somatostatin 250 microg given immediately after diagnostic cholangiopancreatography was compared with that of placebo in patients who required endoscopic sphincterotomy or other therapeutic procedures.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Because people in this Somatostatin study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

As a double-blind Somatostatin study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Somatostatin could be set against what happens without it.

The primary end point was the incidence of post-ERCP clinical pancreatitis, and a secondary end point was the incidence of hyperamylasemia.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Acute Disease, Amylases, Cholangiopancreatography, Endoscopic Retrograde, Hormones, Hyperamylasemia, Pancreatitis and Somatostatin.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Somatostatin in people with pancreatitis (after the acute phase).

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2003 (Gut), a journal based in England.

More context: the Somatostatin compound page, Pancreatitis (after the acute phase) research.