A Comparison of the Ranson Score and Serum Procalcitonin for Predicting the Severity of Acute Pancreatitis

INTRODUCTION Early identification of patients who develop severe acute pancreatitis would enable the selection of patients from early intensive management. Because severe acute pancreatitis is characterized by the development of systemic inflammation, a prospective study was conducted to study whether procalcitonin, a marker of systemic inflammation, differentiated between patients with mild and severe pancreatitis. PURPOSE The present prospective study was carried out to evaluate the relevance of procalcitonin as a predictor of disease severity. METHODS A prospective study was conducted on 40 patients presenting with acute pancreatitis in department of general surgery, JSS Hospital Mysuru from October 2014 to October 2016. Procalcitonin levels was measured by Electrochemiluminescence immunoassay. The accuracy of procalcitonin in predicting severe acute pancreatitis was compared with Ransons score. RESULTS Of the 40 patients 24 patients had severe pancreatitis and 16 had mild pancreatitis. Sensitivity, specificity, Positive predictive value and Negative predictive value for patients calculated using procalcitonin level at 0.5 ng/ml, Ransons score at 3 were 25 %, 94 %, 86 %, 46 % and 46 %, 81 %, 79 %, 50 % respectively. CONCLUSION The available data indicates that in acute pancreatitis RANSON score correlated better than serum procalcitonin in predicting the progression to severe pancreatitis.