International Surgery Journal | September 2019 | Vol 6 | Issue 9 Page 3328 International Surgery Journal Deherkar JA et al. Int Surg J. 2019 Sep;6(9):3328-3334 http://www.ijsurgery.com pISSN 2349-3305 | eISSN 2349-2902 Original Research Article C-reactive protein levels in acute pancreatitis and its clinical significance Juthika Abhijit Deherkar*, Ayush Pandey, Shahaji Deshmukh INTRODUCTION In India acute pancreatitis, has been a major cause of morbidity and mortality and elsewhere. With an increasing incidence in alcoholism and biliary diseases, the major etiological factors, the incidence of acute pancreatitis is expected to increase. 1 Acute pancreatitis is known to man from pre-Christ periods as the death of Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) at the age of 33 years is ascribed due to acute necrotising pancreatitis secondary to his chronic alcoholism. Wirsung in the 17 th century and Halsted in early 19th century made extensive studies on the organ and this disease condition. Early descriptions of pancreatitis were based on the biliary etiology classically described by Opie in his paper in 1900 where in he proposed the Common channel theory. 1 In 1925 Moynihan made the classical statement- “Acute pancreatitis is the most terrible of all calamities that occur in relation with abdominal viscera. The suddenness of onset, the illimitable agony which accompanies it and the ABSTRACT Background: Acute pancreatitis is one of the most common problems faced by surgeon in their practice. Alcohol being one of the most important etiology in country like India. The most common line of management has always been conservative until and unless surgery is indicated for its complications. Till date amylase and lipase have been used as diagnostic tool for it however certain prognostic tools like CRP are still under evaluation. Thus we have made an attempt to evaluate its significance as a prognostic tool in this study. Methods: A hospital based observational comparative prospective study was done with 100 patients to measure C- reactive protein (CRP) levels in patients of acute pancreatitis and evaluate if CRP levels predict the severity of pancreatitis. Results: The mean serum CRP level of patients with Ranson‟s score <3 was significantly higher as compared to mean serum CRP level of patients with Ranson‟s score ≥3 (10.54±5.00 mg/l vs 7.29±3.94 mg/l). There was significant association of serum CRP and Ranson‟s score of patients. Conclusions: The rapid response of CRP to changes in the intensity of the inflammatory stimulus suggests that it might be valuable in the assessment and monitoring of acute pancreatitis. It was observed in our study that measurement of CRP level is a simple method to assess the severity of disease. Keywords: C-reactive protein, Acute pancreatitis, Ranson‟s score Department of Surgery, Bharati Vidyapeeth, Medical College, Pune, Maharashtra, India Received: 11 July 2019 Revised: 22 August 2019 Accepted: 23 August 2019 *Correspondence: Dr. Juthika Abhijit Deherkar, E-mail: dr_juthikaahotmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2349-2902.isj20194074