Endothelial progenitor cells in peripheral blood may serve as a biological marker to predict severe acute pancreatitis

Figure 1 Receiver operating characteristic curves of endothelial progenitor cells, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, white blood cell count, fibrinogen and C-reactive protein. The severe acute pancreatitis group was taken as the positive group and the MAP group was taken as the negative group. EPCs: Endothelial progenitor cells; TNF-α: Tumor necrosis factor-alpha; WBC: White blood cell count; FIB: Fibrinogen; CRP: C-reactive protein.

Figure 2 Distribution of data for the endothelial progenitor cells, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, white blood cell count, fibrinogen and C-reactive protein in each group was asymmetrical. EPCs: Endothelial progenitor cells; TNF-α: Tumor necrosis factor-alpha; WBC: White blood cell count; FIB: Fibrinogen; CRP: C-reactive protein.

Figure 3 Contrast of the five markers. A: Comparison of the levels of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), white blood cell count (WBC), fibrinogen (FIB), and C-reactive protein (CRP) in the peripheral blood. The levels of TNF-α, WBC, FIB and CRP in the control, mild acute pancreatitis (MAP) and severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) groups increased in sequence; B, C, D: Flow cytometric analysis of endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs). The mean levels of EPCs in the control, MAP and SAP groups were 0.55 ± 0.54, 1.63 ± 1.47 and 6.61 ± 4.28, respectively. There was a significant difference between the MAP and SAP groups (P < 0.01). However, the level of EPCs in the control and MAP groups was similar.

Figure 4 Spearman’s correlations between endothelial progenitor cells and the other four markers showed the endothelial progenitor cells had a positive correlation with the other four markers. A-D: The closest correlation was between endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) (r = 0.72, P < 0.01).