Is the pancreas affected in patients with septic shock?——a prospective study

BACKGROUND:Hyperamylasemia can be observed anecdotally during the course of severe sepsis or septic shock.This study aimed to investigate the possibility of pancreatic involvement in patients with septic shock using serum pancreatic enzyme determinations and imaging techniques in 21 consecutive patients with septic shock and 21 healthy subjects as controls. METHODS:The serum activity of pancreatic amylase and lipase was assayed initially in all subjects and 24 and 48 hours after the initial observation in the 21 patients with septic shock All patients also underwent radiological examination to detect pancreatic abnormalities. RESULTS:The serum activity of pancreatic amylase was significantly higher in the 21 patients with septic shock than in the 21 control subjects during the study period while the serum activity of lipase was similar to that of the control subjects.Amylase and lipase serum activity did not significantly changed throughout the study period in the 21 patients with septic shock.None of the patients with pancreatic hyperenzymemia had clinical signs or morphological alterations compatible with acute pancreatitis CONCLUSION:The presence of pancreatic hyperenzymemia in septic shock patients is not a biochemical manifestation of acute pancreatic damage,and the management of these patients should be dependent on the clinical situation and not merely the biochemical results.

Serum tumor markers not useful in screening patients with pancreatic mucinous cystic lesions associated with malignant changes

BACKGROUND: Serum cancer antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) pro-vides additional information about mucinous cystic pancre-atic neoplasm (MPN). This study was undertaken to assess both CA19-9 and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) serum concentrations in consecutive patients affected by MPNs and other chronic benign and malignant pancreatic diseases. We also evaluated whether serum CA19-9 and CEA determina-tions provide additional information such as the presence of invasive carcinoma in MPN patients. METHODS: Serum CA19-9 and CEA from 91 patients with pancreatic diseases were tested by commercially available kits at the time of diagnosis. The upper reference limit of serum CA19-9 was 37 U/mL and that of serum CEA was 3 ng/mL. RESULTS: Thirty-ifve patients was diagnosed with chronic pancreatitis (CP), 32 with MPN, and 24 with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) conifrmed histologically. Surgery was carried out in 5 CP patients, in 10 MPN patients (7 of them had severe dysplasia), and 9 PDAC patients. Serum CA19-9 activity was high in 12 (34.3%) CP patients, in 7 (21.9%) MPN patients, and in 12 (50.0%) PDAC patients (P=0.089). High se-rum CEA concentrations were noted in 6 (17.1%) CP patients, in 6 (18.8%) MPN patients, and in 12 (50.0%) PDAC patients (P=0.010). In the 7 MPN patients associated with histological-ly conifrmed severe dysplasia, 3 (42.9%) patients had elevated serum activity of serum CA19-9, and 2 (28.6%) patients had high levels of CEA. CONCLUSION: Serum determination of oncological markers is not useful in selecting MPN patients with malignant changes.