Serum albumin, a good indicator of persistent organ failure in acute pancreatitis

Background: To evaluate the predictive value of serum albumin (ALB) for persistent organ failure (POF) in acute pancreatitis (AP). Methods: We selected 158 patients with AP in this retrospective study from Jan. 1st, 2015 to Dec. 31st, 2015. Forty-six patients were diagnosed with POF. All the values of laboratory parameters were measured upon admission to hospital. And 48 h after admission, we examined serum albumin of each patient again, called 'ALB2'. Uni-and multi-variate logistic regression were used to evaluate the impact of ALB to predict POF. Results: The median age of the whole population was 48 years and 53.8% were male. The admission-time albumin of AP patients with POF was distinctly lower than patients without POF (28.9 (25.3-33.1) g/L vs. 38.5 (34.0-40.1) g/L, p < 0.001). In uni-variate analysis, WBC, PT, GLU, LDH, ALB, ALB2, BUN, Ca, HDL-C and Ranson were significantly associated with POF. After multivariate regression, ALB remained an independent prognostic factor for POF in AP (OR: 0.748, 95% CI: 0.645-0. 868; p < 0.05). The AUC for ALB is 0.873 (0.808, 0.938), even larger than that for Ranson, 0.845 (0.634, 0.913). Conclusions: We identified serum albumin predictive to persistent organ failure in acute pancreatitis.