Prognostic values of IL-6, IL-8, and IL-10 in acute pancreatitis.

Goals: The prognostic importance of interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-8, and IL-10 in the prediction of acute pancreatitis severity.

Background: Early assessment of severity in acute pancreatitis could help the patients who are at risk of developing complications. Unfortunately, the used prognostic scoring systems generally are only moderately accurate in assessing disease severity.

Study: We studied 117 consecutive patients with a diagnosis of acute pancreatitis admitted to our hospital during the past 2 years. Laboratory parameters and cytokines were analyzed from serum taken routinely on admission. Severity criteria were noted for each patient using Ranson, Glasgow, and APACHE II scoring systems. Local and systemic complications, developed during a follow-up period, were classified by Atlanta criteria.

Results: IL-6 was the only parameter that statistically significantly predicted complicated acute pancreatitis (P<0.05). IL-8 and IL-10 and the 3 prognostic scoring systems used did not properly assess complicated versus noncomplicated acute pancreatitis.

Conclusions: Our prospective study supported the potential importance of IL-6 in the early assessment of complicated acute pancreatitis, but also suggested that pancreatitis classified as complicated in a large number of patients could not be correctly predicted with the Ranson, Glasgow, and APACHE II scoring systems.