Balthazar Score and Neutrophil-Lymphocytes Ratio in Acute Pancreatitis

Acute pancreatitis is a pathological entity that poses numerous diagnostic and treatment problems. Severe form is a real challenge for a physician because it has multiple obscure causes, as well as a complex pathophysiology. Thus, the diagnosis is difficult and the choice of the right time for surgical treatment is controversial, the treatment being more frequently nonspecific, supportive for the various affected systems and organs. On a group of 337 patients, laboratory and imaging investigations were performed to diagnose and determine the severity score of acute pancreatitis and the correlation level between the neutrophil-lymphocytes ratio values and the Balthazar score, as a valid assessment method for local and systemic inflammatory changes. The distribution's study of acute pancreatitis by gender according to etiology confirms the predominance of the acute ethanolic pancreatitis in male, but also the higher proportion (54%) of male pancreatitis (181 man vs. 156 women) with gender ratio male/female 1.16/1. The neutrophil-lymphocytes ratio mean value varied according with the Balthazar severity score, that got higher as acute pancreatitis got more advanced and with a certain cut-off value can be considered a simple indicator to determine the severity of acute pancreatitis.