Prognosis of acute pancreatitis

The prognosis of an individual attack of acute pancreatitis is dependent on its severity and whether or not sepsis develops in or around the pancreas. Approximately 20-25% of patients with acute pancreatitis have a severe form of the disease which usually necessitates high dependency or intensive care management in the first week or two of illness. While most of these patients can readily be identified by experienced clinical judgement a proportion of them do not appear unduly ill at first presentation. For this reason a number of objective grading systems have been devised which identified the group of patients with the greatest likelihood of developing major complications and being at risk of death. The most commonly utilised systems in the United Kingdom are the eight factor Glasgow scoring scale and the APACHE II system. The measurement of C-reactive protein is also helpful and it has recently been shown that the combining of the Glasgow scoring system with CRP results in 80% or better sensitivity and specificity for those who develop major clinical complications. The body mass index (BMI) when over 30 kgs/m2 is also a useful marker of an adverse outcome, and CT scanning is another method of grading severity. The newer markers of interleukin 6 and PMN elastase have yet to be proved in a large prospective clinical study but do show considerable promise as being of value in identifying the patient at risk.