Multiple organ dysfunction associated with severe acute pancreatitis.

Objective: To compare three different multiple organ dysfunction scores in predicting hospital mortality rates and to discover which one best assesses organ dysfunction/failure in patients with severe acute pancreatitis in a general intensive care unit.

Design: Retrospective, observational study.

Setting: Surgical department and a ten-bed general intensive care unit in a tertiary care hospital.

Patients: Among the 178 consecutive patients admitted to the surgical department with severe acute pancreatitis from 1994 to 1998, 113 patients treated in the general intensive care unit underwent study.

Interventions: None.

Measurement And Main Results: Clinical and laboratory data were collected during a period of 35 days. Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II, Multiple Organ Dysfunction (MOD) score, Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score, and Logistic Organ Dysfunction (LOD) score were calculated and compared regarding hospital mortality rate. In addition, daily maximum score and a total maximum score (sum of the highest values for each organ dysfunction) were calculated for all three scores. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was used as a measure of accuracy of the scores. The highest accuracy was revealed with daily maximum scores with the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve 0.847 for SOFA, 0.844 for MOD, and 0.836 for LOD. According to the maximum SOFA score, the highest mortality rate was associated with liver (83%, p <.001) and renal (63%, p <.001) failures. The mortality ratio with two organ failures ranged from 50% to 91%. The highest mortality rate (91%) was for a combination of hepatic and renal failure. In multiple logistic regression analysis, only hepatic, renal, and cardiovascular failure and previous cardiovascular medication were independent risk factors for hospital mortality.

Conclusion: In patients with severe acute pancreatitis, organ dysfunction scores (MOD, SOFA, LOD) show good accuracy, comparable with APACHE II in predicting hospital mortality. The maximum daily organ dysfunction scores were simple and useful in assessing multiple organ dysfunction and in predicting hospital mortality rates of patients with severe acute pancreatitis.