Zhang T, et al. - Researchers tested their hypothesis that elevated red cell distribution width (RDW) could be used in judging the severity of acute pancreatitis (AP). In this retrospective and prospective analysis of AP patients, who were admitted to the Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital of Tongji University, RDW was found to be positively related to AP severity, and was suggested to be likely a useful predictive parameter of AP severity. In order to predict whether patients with AP should be in intensive care unit (ICU), the identified optimal cutoff value for RDW was 13.55 with a sensitivity of 54.5% and a specificity of 73.6%. Significantly higher ICU admission ratio was reported in the validation study for AP with RDW ≥ 13.55% vs for those with RDW < 13.55%.