Background: Chronic pancreatitis (CP) is a chronic inflammatory disease of pancreas resulting in irreversible morphological changes in pancreas along with pain and could also result in exocrine and endocrine dysfunction and even complete loss of functionality. Severity of condition is usually measured subjectively by clinicians using their clinical impression into mild, moderate and severe. There are multiple scoring systems present at current time but are not widely used either due to complexity of score which makes it impractical to be used in outpatient setting, e.g., Manchester, ABC and M-ANNHEIM or they are using parameters recorded subjectively which make them un-reliable and nonreproducible. So, we devised a scoring system which is practical and reliable.
Methods: We devised as scoring system which will record clinical condition such as pain, functionality of organ including exocrine, endocrine functions, Bone health and absorption of fat-soluble vitamins and morphological changes.
Results: CP Trinity score ranges from 0–24, with scores from 1–3 representing mild, 4–6 representing moderate and 7 or more representing severe disease. Severe pain, severe exocrine dysfunction and major morphological changes alone can result in the quantify the disease as severe. Any change and deterioration of the disease can be measured and communicated in a standardised fashion. We have applied the score on 100 of our patients and internal validation against quality of life (QOL) and readmissions in hospital system is underway. We are doing a collaboration with an international institute to externally validate the score.
Conclusions: CP Trinity score will provide efficient, reliable and standardised way of quantifying the severity of CP. This will allow clinicians to identify deterioration in patients and take appropriate measures to counter them.
