A retrospective study of pregnant patients with acute pancreatitis.

OBJECTIVE: Acute pancreatitis is a rare disease in pregnant patients. Although it may have serious maternal and fetal consequences, morbidity and mortality rates have decreased recently due to appropriate and rapid treatment with earlier diagnosis. The aim of this study was to evaluate pregnant patients diagnosed with acute pancreatitis. METHODS: The study included pregnant patients diagnosed with acute pancreatitis who were admitted to Adana City Training and Research Hospital in Adana, Turkey, between January 2014 and January 2022. Patients' files were screened. Patients' demographics, acute pancreatitis etiology, severity, complications, and applied treatment, as well as maternal and fetal outcomes were evaluated. RESULTS: The study included 65 pregnant patients with acute pancreatitis. The mean age was 26.6±5 (19-41) years. Acute pancreatitis was observed in the third trimester. The most common cause of acute pancreatitis was gallstones, and its severity was often mild. Only two patients required endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography, and the remaining patients were treated medically. Maternal and infant death developed in a patient with necrotizing acute pancreatitis secondary to hyperlipidemia. CONCLUSION: The most common etiology of acute pancreatitis in pregnancy was gallstones. Acute pancreatitis occurred in the third trimester. Most of the patients had mild acute pancreatitis. Maternal and fetal complications were rare. We think that the reasons for the low mortality rate were mild disease severity and biliary etiology, and most patients were in the third trimester, as well as early diagnosis and no delay in the intervention.

Mean platelet volume is a useful indicator of systemic inflammation in cirrhotic patients with ascitic fluid infection.

AIM: Ascitic fluid infection (AFI) consists primarily of two variants, namely, culture-negative neutrocytic ascites and spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP). Mean platelet volume (MPV) has begun to be used as a simple and inexpensive indicator of inflammation in some diseases. We aimed to analyse whether platelet size alterations would be useful in predicting AFI in cirrhotic patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A total of 135 patients with ascites due to cirrhosis and 55 control subjects were enrolled in this study. According to ascitic fluid analysis, 58 patients were considered to have AFI. MPV and inflammatory parameter values were determined for all study participants. The ability of MPV values to predict AFI in cirrhotic patients was analysed using receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. RESULTS: A statistically significant increase in MPV levels was observed in cirrhotic patients with AFI compared to cirrhotic patients without AFI and healthy controls (p < 0.001). A statistically significant increase was observed in the AFI group with respect to MPV, C-reactive protein (CRP) and white blood cell (WBC) levels. ROC curve analysis suggested that the optimum MPV level cut-off point for cirrhotic patients with AFI was 8.45, with a sensitivity, specificity, negative predictive value (NPV), and positive predictive value (PPV) of 70.7%, 67.5%, 75.4% and 62.1%, respectively (area under curve: 0.768). CONCLUSION: Our study shows that MPV is increased in cirrhotic patients with AFI. MPV measurement can considered to be an accurate diagnostic test in predicting AFI, possibly due to an ongoing systemic inflammatory response.

Prognostic markers in cirrhotic patients requiring intensive care: a comparative prospective study.

INTRODUCTION: The use of prognostic models for cirrhotic patients admitted to the medical intensive care unit (ICU) is of great importance, since they provide an objective evaluation for a group of patients with high mortality rates and high resource utilization. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the validity and to compare the prognostic predictive value of the CTP, MELD, SOFA and APACHE II scoring systems in cirrhotic patients admitted to the ICU, the CTP and MELD models being exclusive for patients with liver disease. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Commonly used predictors of mortality such as age, sex, CTP, MELD, APACHE II and SOFA were evaluated, and their prognostic value was investigated. RESULTS: A total of 201 patients were included in this study. Patients who survived had mean CTP score of 9.5 ± 2.4, MELD score 18.1 ± 7.1, APACHE II score of 13.4 ± 4.8 and SOFA score of 4.2 ± 2.6, compared to respective scores of 11.4 ± 2.8, 28.0 ± 11.2, 24.6 ± 10.4 and 8.7 ± 4.0 in patients who died. The difference between groups was statistically significant for each of one of the scoring systems (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: In this study, SOFA was found to be the most powerful predictor of prognosis for cirrhotic patients admitted to the ICU. This was followed by APACHE II, MELD and CTP models, in descending order of strength (AUROC values of 0.847, 0.821, 0.790 and 0.724, respectively).

Recurrent pyogenic cholangitis in a case with congenital biliary anomaly.

Recurrent pyogenic cholangitis is endemic to South-east Asia but has been very rarely reported from natives of other parts of the world. A 43-years-old woman was presented with sepsis that had a history of recurrent epigastric pain and fever attacks. Her liver tests were unremarkable suggesting any hepatobiliary diseases. Recurrent pyogenic cholangitis and congenital extrahepatic biliary anomaly have been diagnosed after serial diagnostic and therapeutic procedures including endoscopic retrograde cholangiography, MR-cholangiography, percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography and finally left hepatectomy. She was cured completely following surgical treatment.