Ultrasound Diagnosis of Nonalcoholic Fatty Pancreas Disease in Children and Its Clinical Significance

Abstract Background The purpose of this study was to investigate the incidence of non-alcoholic fatty pancreatic disease (NAFPD) diagnosed by ultrasound in children and the related factors of NAFPD in children. Methods 326 children (2–14 years old) were selected as the study subjects. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS software 23.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Results A total of 41 cases (12.6%) of the 326 children had NAFPD. The two experimental groups showed statistically significant differences in age, height, WHtR, TC, LDL, ALT, AST and GGT (p  0.472(p = 0.007), TC > 5.3 mmol/L༈p  2.49 mmol/L༈p = 0.002༉and ALT > 23.8 U/L( p = 0.018) were independent risk factors for occurrence of NAFPD. Conclusions (1) The high incidence of NAFPD in children was worthy of attention; (2) WHtR was an independent risk factor for NAFPD; (3) WHtR might be an sensitive index which could early screen children MetS and used in epidemiological investigation; (4) NAFPD was closely related to obesity and metabolic syndrome, and ultrasound could be used as the preferred imaging diagnosis method for NAFPD.