Initial values of skeletal muscle parameters in patients presenting with acute pancreatitis

Abstract

Objective: Predicting the clinical course of acute pancreatitis has been discussed previously on the basis of visceral adipose tissue. This study was conducted to determine the relationship between clinical outcomes of acute pancreatitis and changes in skeletal muscle parameters. Method: This is a single-center, cross-sectional, retrospective study. Patients who were diagnosed with acute pancreatitis between 01-28 February 2019 and had abdominal computed tomography (CT) taken in the first week of their hospitalization were included in the study. L3 level of abdominal CT images were used to evaluate skeletal muscle parameters. Results: During the hospital database scanning, 127 patients newly diagnosed with acute pancreatitis were included in the study. The median age was 50 (18-88) years, 47% were male, and 53% were female. The median body mass index (BMI) was 26,42 (19.4-46.8) kg/m2. Fifty-one % of patients were diagnosed with biliary acute pancreatitis, and 48.8% were diagnosed with non-biliary acute pancreatitis. At the same time, acute pancreatitis severity was classified according to revised Atlanta criteria, 67.7% were mild (n = 86), 28.3% were moderate (n = 36) and 5 (3.9%) patients were severe. Skeletal muscle mass was evaluated using the total psoas index (TPI) and, skeletal muscle density calculated by HU. Median TPI was 6.3 (2.5-13.7). The median of Hounsfield Unit (HU) average calculation was 18.9 (3.8-28.5) (Table 1). There were no statistically significant differences on sex, age, BMI, skeletal muscle parameters, and acute pancreatitis clinical outcome (Table 2). Conclusion: Skeletal muscle parameters determined by TPI and HU were not a predictor of the clinical course, and viewing them always cannot effectively investigate their effect on acute pathologies. So, this way couldn't be proposed as a perfect method for predicting the clinical outcome of acute pancreatitis.