Jin Y, Lin CJ, Dong LM, Chen MJ, Zhou Q, Wu JS. Clinical significance of melatonin concentrations in predicting the severity of acute pancreatitis. World J Gastroenterol 2013; 19(25): 4066-4071 [PMID: 23840154 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v19.i25.4066]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Jian-Sheng Wu, Professor of Medicine, Department of Gastroenterology, First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical College, No. 2 Xuefu Road, Lucheng District, Wenzhou 325000, Zhejiang Province, China. wzwujs@163.com
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Brief Article
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Yin Jin, Chun-Jing Lin, Le-Mei Dong, Meng-Jun Chen, Qiong Zhou, Jian-Sheng Wu, Department of Gastroenterology, First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical College, Wenzhou 325000, Zhejiang Province, China
Author contributions: Wu JS designed the research; Jin Y, Dong LM and Zhou Q performed the research; Lin CJ and Chen MJ provided analytic tools; Jin Y wrote the paper.
Supported by The Wenzhou Municipal Science and Technology Commission Major Projects Funds, No. 20090006
Correspondence to: Jian-Sheng Wu, Professor of Medicine, Department of Gastroenterology, First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical College, No. 2 Xuefu Road, Lucheng District, Wenzhou 325000, Zhejiang Province, China. wzwujs@163.com
Telephone: +86-577-55559191 Fax: +86-577-55559192
Received: December 19, 2012 Revised: April 15, 2013 Accepted: June 5, 2013 Published online: July 7, 2013 Processing time: 199 Days and 1.3 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: It is important to assess the severity and changes in a patient’s condition in a timely and accurate manner. Thus, a comprehensive treatment plan for acute pancreatitis patients is critical. Melatonin plays a protective role in the early course of human acute pancreatitis, and melatonin concentration variations are closely related to the severity of acute pancreatitis and the bedside index for severity in acute pancreatitis score. We can determine the severity of disease in the clinic more objectively, accurately and rapidly by measuring the levels of serum melatonin than by using the standard scoring systems. When the serum concentration of melatonin is below 28.74 ng/L, it is possible that acute pancreatitis patients will develop severe acute pancreatitis.