Hematological Indices Predicting the Severity of Acute Pancreatitis Presenting to the Emergency Department: A Retrospective Analysis

Introduction Acute pancreatitis is defined as inflammation of the pancreas. The body responds to inflammation by producing excessive neutrophils and causing programmed cell death of lymphocytes. This leads to immunological instability, which increases the severity of the disease and mortality rate. Recent data suggest that markers of systemic inflammation are able to predict the prognosis of various diseases. Our study aims to assess the severity of acute pancreatitis in conjunction with these hematological markers of systemic inflammation. Materials and methods Our study was carried out in the emergency medicine department of a tertiary care hospital among patients diagnosed with acute pancreatitis. It was a retrospective study done by reviewing the hospital's medical records. Hematological indices such as hemoglobin levels, packed cell volume (PCV), red blood cell (RBC) count, mean corpuscular volume (MCV), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH), mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC), total leukocyte count (TLC), neutrophil count, lymphocyte count, monocyte count, platelet count, neutrophil to lymphocyte count ratio (NLR), lymphocyte to monocyte ratio (LMR), and platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR) were observed to be associated with severity of pancreatitis. Those with computed tomography (CT) severity score >=7 were termed as severe pancreatitis, while those below 7 were considered mild to moderate. Results A total of 154 patients were included in the final analysis. The mean age of those patients was 48.47 ± 16.71 years. There were 94 male and 60 female patients. There was no difference found among the study groups with respect to mean hemoglobin levels, RBC count, PCV, MCV, MCH, MCHC, lymphocytes, and platelet counts. TLC (p<0.001), neutrophils (p<0.001), monocytes (p=0.008), NLR (p<0.001), and PLR (p=0.006) were found higher in severe pancreatitis, while LMR was found lower in severe pancreatitis (p=0.003). A linear relationship between the hematological indices and CT severity score has shown that TLC (p=0.015), neutrophils (p=0.005), NLR (p=0.001), and PLR (p<0.001) were positively correlated with severity while lymphocyte count (p=0.004) and LMR (p=0.005) were negatively correlated with severe pancreatitis. TLC and LMR were independent predictors of severe pancreatitis with an adjusted odds ratio of 12.80 and 5.47, respectively, on multivariable regression analysis. Conclusion Many markers correlated with the CT severity score, but few of them were able to demonstrate statistical significance on receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis.