How to score acute pancreatitis in the emergency setting: five systems against ED-SAS

To assess the effectiveness of a new scale known as “Emergency department SpO2 (peripheral capillary oxygen saturation), age, and SIRS (Systemic inflammatory response syndrome)” (ED-SAS) that can be used to predict prognosis within 24 hours following presentation compatible with acute pancreatitis in patients admitted to the emergency department. This research project was conducted as a single-center, retrospective, cohort study. The Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II), SIRS, Bedside Index for Severity in Acute Pancreatitis (BISAP), ED-SAS, modified Glasgow Scale and Ranson criteria scoring of the patients were evaluated using their presentation data screened from the hospital automation system. Then, the efficiencies of these evaluation systems were compared using the receiving operating curve (ROC). The conformity of the data to the normal distribution was checked with the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. The ROC analyses were employed to identify the cut-off values of the scoring systems in calculating death rates. The method developed by DeLong et al. was used to compare the ROC curves of the scoring systems. The study has been completed with 235 patients, 91 (38.7%) male and 144 (61.3%) female, with a mean age of 63.1 ± 17.7 years. In the ROC analysis of the ED-SAS evaluation tool to predict death rates, the area under the curve (AUC) value was found to be 0.85 (95% confidence interval: 0.79–0.89), and the Youden index was 0.62, with a p value of 0.001. Mortality prediction with ED-SAS significantly differed compared to the Ranson and SIRS scoring systems (P = 0.001 and P = 0.03, respectively). However, no statistically significant difference was found in the comparison of the ED-SAS score with the modified Glasgow and APACHE II scores (P = 0.12 and P = 0.54, respectively). It was concluded that the Baseband ED-SAS scores provided equally significant results in terms of AUC at the 95% confidence interval (P = 0.05). Statistical analyses revealed that the APACHE II, SIRS, BISAP, modified Glasgow and ED-SAS scores were found to be significantly higher among the dead in comparison to the survivors (P < 0.05). ED-SAS constitutes a simple, fast, expedient and effective evaluation system that can be utilized to predict mortality in acute pancreatitis in the emergency setting.