Activation of Polyamine Catabolism in Patients With Acute Pancreatitis
Activation of Polyamine Catabolism in Patients With Acute Pancreatitis
Background: Polyamines are essential compounds in all mammalian tissues. If tissue
 spermidine/spermine levels, however, dramatically decrease, the cellular survival is severely
 endangered. Transgenic animals, where the homeostasis of cellular polyamines can be disturbed
 and tissue spermidine/spermine levels are decreased, acute pancreatitis evolves, indicating
 pancreas to be one of the most vulnerable organs for tissue polyamine catabolism. On the
 other hand, our own data suggests that also in other models of acute experimental
 pancreatitis pancreatic polyamines are changed depending on the severity of pancreatitis in
 such a way that the more severe pancreatitis the lower are the pancreatic polyamine levels.
 Minor changes were observed also in rats undergoing sham operation only. In addition of
 pancreatic enzymes, inflammatory mediators are also involved in the pathophysiology of the
 disease. CRP, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10 and Procalcitonin are useful in predicting the severity of
 the disease, combination of IL-6 and IL-10 at admission can predict organ failure with
 sensitivity of 95 %, specificity of 88 %.

 Hypothesis: Similar to experimental pancreatitis, blood polyamine changes are associated with
 acute pancreatitis also in the man. These changes are dependent on the severity of
 pancreatitis, but not on the etiology of pancreatitis. The changes are specific to acute
 pancreatitis compared with other intra-abdominal emergencies. The changes observed return to
 baseline during recovery. Furthermore, we assume that blood polyamine negatively correlates
 with IL-6, IL-8, and procalcitonin, and positively with IL-10.
Inclusion Criteria:

 -  Patients who are diagnosed as acute pancreatitis.

 -  Patients who are diagnosed as either of gallstone, duodenal ulcer or bleeding, gastric
 ulcer or bleeding, irritable bowel syndrome, hernia, diverticulitis, retrocecal
 appendicitis with non-pancreatic acute abdominal pain.

 Exclusion Criteria:

 -  Patients who underwent operation

 -  Patients who underwent recurrent acute pancreatitis