Soluble B7-H2 as a novel marker in early evaluation of the severity of acute pancreatitis.

The clinical usefulness of soluble B7-H2 (sB7-H2) as an early indicator of acute pancreatitis (AP) remains unclear, so we performed the present study to investigate this issue. For our cohort, we recruited 75 patients with AP, 70 patients with other abdominal sepsis, and 20 healthy control individuals. The sB7-H2 levels of AP patients or healthy control individuals were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The sB7-H2 levels in patients with AP rather than other patients with abdominal sepsis were significantly higher than those in healthy controls. Hence, we selected AP to study the clinical significance of sB7-H2 in inflammatory conditions. The sB7-H2 level was positively correlated with the white blood cell (WBC) count and the lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), and lipopolysaccharide LPS levels (P <.05 for each). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis revealed that sB7-H2 can distinguish moderately severe acute pancreatitis (MSAP) and severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) from mildly acute pancreatitis (MAP) with 77.8% sensitivity and 80.0% specificity; and that the levels of sB7-H2 also can distinguish SAP from MSAP and MAP with 92.0% sensitivity and 86.0% specificity. The present results indicate that sB7-H2 might be a useful marker in the clinical diagnosis of AP.