• Jinmei Yao and Guocai Lv.
• Department of Laboratory Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
• BMJ Open. 2014 Jan 1;4(8):e004721.

ObjectiveWe investigated whether red cell distribution width (RDW) was associated with mortality in patients with acute pancreatitis (AP).DesignA cross-sectional study.SettingPatients with AP were recruited in the emergency department and healthy individuals were recruited in healthcare centre in the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University.ParticipantsA total of 106 patients with AP and 204 healthy individuals were enrolled.Primary And Secondary Outcome MeasuresHaematology and biochemistry results of the first test after admission were collected. The significance of the differences in RDW values among healthy individuals, non-survivors of patients with AP, and survivors of patients with AP was determined using one-way analysis of variance. Patients with AP were divided into three groups according to RDW tertiles. All patients with AP were followed up for at least 3 months. Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis and Kaplan-Meier analysis were used to evaluate RDW values to predict mortality of patients with AP.ResultsThe RDW values were non-survivors of patients with AP>healthy individuals>survivors of patients with AP. Patients with AP with the highest RDW tertiles had the lowest levels of Ca, total protein, albumin, haemoglobin, white and red blood cell count, but the highest mortality. The area under the ROC curve of RDW was 0.846 (95% CI 0.727 to 0.964, p<0.001). With a cut-off value of 14.2 for RDW, sensitivity and specificity of RDW to predict mortality were 75.0% and 89.8%, and Kaplan-Meier analysis showed an increase in probability of death with high RDW values.ConclusionsThere is significant association between RDW and mortality of patients with AP.Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

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