SERUM LIPOCALIN IN PATIENTS WITH ACUTE PANCREATITIS

Abstract

Abstract. Introduction. Acute pancreatitis is a severe inflammatory disease of the pancreas. In case of severe acute pancreatitis, mortality rate reaches 36-50%. The most challenging issue is the prediction of its severity and clinical outcome due to the limitations of clinical scoring systems and biochemical markers, which are still being studied intensely. Aim: To study serum lipocalin levels in patients with acute pancreatitis of varying severity. Materials and Methods. Our study included 68 patients diagnosed with acute pancreatitis and treated in the inpatient facility of Kazan City Clinical Hospital 7 over the years 2017-2019. Patients were stratified by severity, gender, and age. As a comparison group, 20 healthy volunteers without any gastrointestinal issues were examined. Specimen to be studied were the sera of patients with acute pancreatitis and those of healthy volunteers. Blood was sampled from the patients upon admission to the hospital and before their discharge from it. Lipocalin levels were registered using BioVendor’s Human Lipocalin-2/NGAL ELISA kit. The findings were processed statistically at their normal distribution. Results and Discussion. Our study showed a significant excess of lipocalin levels in patients with acute pancreatitis as compared with healthy volunteers. In healthy volunteers this value varied within 4.91±6.55 ng/ml, while it was 78.19±89.09 ng/ml (p<0.05) in acute pancreatitis patients. Conclusions. Our study of serum lipocalin in patients with acute pancreatitis showed a significant and statistically reliable excess of this indicator as compared to healthy volunteers. The highest lipocalin levels were found in patients with severe acute pancreatitis. Conventional therapy reduced these levels in mild, moderate, and severe cases, although there was no statistically significant difference before and after treatment. Keywords: pancreatic necrosis, lipocalin, prediction.