Comparison of Bedside Index for Severity in Acute Pancreatitis and Emergency Department SpO2, Age and Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome Scores in Predicting Severe Acute Pancreatitis in Patients with Acute Pancreatitis in the Emergency Department

As the mortality of severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) is significantly higher than those with mild or moderate severity, it is of clinical significance to identify patients most likely to develop SAP at the time of emergency department (ED) presentation. The aim of this study was to compare the performance of the Bedside Index for Severity in Acute Pancreatitis (BISAP) and the Emergency Department SpO2, Age and SIRS (ED-SAS) scoring systems as early risk assessment tools for identifying patients at high-risk of developing SAP. We retrospectively reviewed adult patients with AP presented to ED between January 2019–September 2022. We calculated the scores of each patient with the parameters of the initial data. The primary outcome was SAP. The secondary outcomes were 30-day mortality, intensive care admission, and identifying low-risk patients without complications. Of 415 patients, 34 (8.2%) developed SAP and 15 (3.6%) died. With regard to predicting SAP, BISAP and ED-SAS scores had similar discriminative ability with area under the curves (AUCs) of 0.84 (95% confidence interval [CI]:0.80–0.88) and 0.83 (95% CI:0.79–0.86), respectively (p = 0.642). At a cut-off score of ≥2 for SAP, sensitivity/specificity values were 73.5%/82.4% for BISAP, 76.5%/83.2% for ED-SAS. BISAP and ED-SAS scores of ≥3, yielded sensitivity/specificity values of 50%/95.8% and 35.3%/95.5%, respectively. BISAP and ED-SAS were also similar in predicting mortality (AUCs of 0.92 vs. 0.90, respectively) and intensive care unit admission (AUCs 0.91 vs. 0.91). The BISAP and ED-SAS scores performed similarly in predicting SAP, mortality, and intensive care unit admission. As an easily calculated tool early in the ED, ED-SAS may be helpful in disposition decisions for emergency physicians.