Original article CT FINDINGS OF ACUTE PANCREATITIS IN MAHARAJ NAKORN CHIANG MAI HOSPITAL

Purpose To retrospectively review etiologies, CT findings, complications and correlation between the CT severity index (CTSI) and length of hospital stay (LOS) in the patients with acute pancreatitis in Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital. Materials and methods Ninety one patients with a diagnosis of acute pancreatitis were recruited from the Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital database from October 2003 to June 2005. The etiologies of acute pancreatitis were collected from medical records. Fifty patients underwent CT scans in the hospital. The CT findings were analyzed. All patients were grouped into mild, moderate and severe pancreatitis using the currently accepted CTSI, developed by Bathazar et al. Correlation between CTSI and LOS was calculated by ANOVA and Sheffe methods using the SPSS program. Result The most common etiology of acute pancreatitis was alcohol ingestion, which presented in 30 patients (60%). By using the currently accepted CTSI, we graded the sever-ity of acute pancreatitis as mild in 30 (60%), moderate in 16 (32%) and severe in 4 (8%) of the 50 patients. The most common extrapancreatic abnormality was pleural effusion; which accounted for 29 (58%) of the 50 patients. Complications of pancreatitis were as follows