The Importance of Haematocrit in Prediction of Severe Acute Pancreatitis

Background Acute pancreatitis is fortunately usually a mild and self-limiting disease. About 20-25 % of patients may have severe form with mortality going to 5 - 30 %. The microcirculation disorder is the main cause of the pancreatic necrosis. Theres higher vassal permeability inside the pancreatic tissue, which leads to a higher blood viscosity and its stasis in the microcirculation. Early identification of the risk factors in the severe acute pancreatitis development has potential advantages of aggressive treatment at intensive care unit or transfer to higher centre, by preventing or minimizing the possible complications. Haematocrit has been used as a predictor of severity of acute pancreatitis Objectives To study the significance of haematocrit in prediction of severity of acute pancreatitis. Methods Patients admitted with first episode of acute pancreatitis from February 2011 to December 2014 were included. Haematocrit at admission and 24 hours of admission were compared with severity of acute pancreatitis. Mean, analysis of variance, chi square, Pearson correlation were used for statistical analysis. Results 123 patients were included in the study with 76 (61.8 %) female and 47 (38.2 %) male. Haematocrit at 24 hours of admission was higher in severe acute pancreatitis (p value 0.003). Both haematocrit at admission and at 24 hours had positive correlation with severity of acute pancreatitis (r 0.297, P value 0.029 and r 0.543, P value 0.011) respectively. Conclusion Haematocrit is a simple, cost effective and widely available test and can predict severity of acute pancreatitis.