Serum TNF-Alpha Levels in Acute and Chronic Pancreatitis

Aim: Acute and chronic pancreatitis are inflammations of pancreatic tissue which have systemic effects and clinical presentations such as bacteremia and septic shock. Inflammatory markers have growing importance in diagnosis and identification of the severity of the pancreatitis. We aimed to determine TNF-alpha levels in acute and chronic pancreatitis and evaluate the relation between TNF-alpha levels and the pancreatic enzyme concentrations in two forms of the disease.
Methods: 13 patients with acute pancreatitis, 36 patients with chronic pancreatitis and 14 healthy controls were included to our study. TNF-alpha determinations were performed with ELISA method.
Results: TNF-alpha concentrations were 13.30±4.42 (7.04-21.35) pg/ml and 9.88±4.68 (3.99-27.73) pg/ml 10.09±1.01 (8.69-14.96) pg/ml in patients with acute and chronic pancreatitis and healthy controls respectively. TNF-alpha concentrations were significantly higher in patients with acute pancreatitis than the patients with chronic pancreatitis. But there was no significant difference between healthy controls and patients with either acute or chronic pancreatitis for TNF-alpha levels. There was no significant correlation between TNF-alpha concentrations and pancreatic enzyme levels.
Conclusion: We concluded that in acute pancreatitis TNF-alpha levels were higher than the chronic form of the disease. But its concentrations did not correlate with the severity of the disease. By investigation of the other inflammatory markers and acute phase reactants with TNF-alpha, this process will be more clarified.