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

Table 1 Analysis of diagnostic value

	Cut-off value	Sensitivity	Specificity	YI	AUC
EPCs, %	2.26	90.0%	83.3%	0.73	0.926
TNF-α, pg/mL	103.12	80.0%	80.0%	0.60	0.790
WBCs, 109/L	8.98	83.3%	63.3%	0.47	0.704
FIB, g/L	5.85	66.7%	76.7%	0.43	0.749
CRP, mg/dL	5.94	73.3%	96.7%	0.70	0.859

AUC: Area under the curve; EPCs: Endothelial progenitor cells; FIB: Fibrinogen; TNF-α: Tumor necrosis factor-alpha; WBCs: White blood cells; YI: Youden index.

Table 2 Basic characteristics of the three groups

Patient characteristic	Control group	MAP group	SAP group
Number	20	30	30
Average years of age	47.65 ± 15.14	48.17 ± 16.85	54.97 ± 15.35
Sex (male/female)	10/10	14/16	17/13

There was no significant difference in ages or sex among the three groups according to ANOVA test. MAP: Mild acute pancreatitis; SAP: Severe acute pancreatitis.

Table 3 Comparison of the five markers in the three groups

Patients characteristic	Control group	MAP group	SAP group
EPCs, %	0.55 ± 0.54	1.63 ± 1.47	6.61 ± 4.28ab
TNF-α, pg/mL	19.16 ± 9.33b	101.18 ± 74.59a	208.16 ± 118.03ab
WBC, 109/L	6.45 ± 1.24b	8.94 ± 2.58a	10.90 ± 3.47a
FIB, g/L	1.55 ± 0.79b	4.47 ± 1.85a	6.48 ± 2.23ab
CRP, mg/dL	0.74 ± 0.40b	2.70 ± 2.52a	7.70 ± 3.36ab

^aP < 0.05 vs Control;

^bP < 0.05 vs MAP. EPCs: SAP vs MAP, P = 0.00; SAP vs Control, P = 0.00; MAP vs Control, P = 0.54; TNF-α: SAP vs MAP, P = 0.00; SAP vs Control, P = 0.00; MAP vs Control, P = 0.01; FIB: SAP vs MAP, P = 0.00; SAP vs Control, P = 0.00; MAP vs Control, P = 0.00; WBC: SAP vs MAP, P = 0.07; SAP vs Control, P = 0.00; MAP vs Control, P = 0.02; CRP: SAP vs MAP, P = 0.00; SAP vs Control, P = 0.00; MAP vs Control, P = 0.04. CRP: C-reactive protein; EPCs: Endothelial progenitor cells; FIB: Fibrinogen; TNF-α: Tumor necrosis factor-alpha; WBC: White blood cells.

Table 4 Relations among the five markers

	TNF-α,	WBCs,	FIB,	CRP,
	r value	r value	r value	r value
EPCs	0.7211	0.5942	0.7033	0.666
TNF-α		0.555	0.639	0.614
WBCs			0.442	0.408
FIB				0.6854

¹Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) had the closest correlation with tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) (P < 0.01);

²White blood cells (WBCs) had the closest correlation with EPCs (P < 0.01);

³Fibrinogen (FIB) had the closest correlation with EPCs (P < 0.01);

⁴C-reactive protein (CRP) had the closet correlation with FIB (P < 0.01).