Pancreatic exocrine function in patients with chronic liver disease.

It is unclear whether patients with chronic liver disease have impaired pancreatic exocrine function. This study was designed to answer this question. Pancreatic exocrine function was evaluated with pancreatic function diagnostic (PFD) test in 16 patients with chronic hepatitis, 32 patients with liver cirrhosis, and 26 patients with cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and in 26 control subjects. The values of PFD test were significantly lower in both patients with liver cirrhosis (70.5 +/- 10.7%, P < 0.01) and patients with cirrhosis and HCC (68.5 +/- 11.2%, P < 0.01) than in controls (77.8 +/- 6.5%). Although the value was also lower in patients with chronic hepatitis (71.8 +/- 11.4%) than in that in controls, the difference did not reach the level of significance. To evaluate potential effect of the impairment of para-amino-benzoic acid (PABA) absorption on the results of PFD test, we further performed a PABA absorption test in 16 patients with chronic liver disease who had abnormal PFD tests. There were no significant differences of the values of PABA test between control group and any patients groups. These results suggest that patients with chronic liver disease have an abnormal pancreatic exocrine function.