Acute pancreatitis (AP) is a dynamic process with 2 overlapping phases of disease: the early phase and the following late phase. The early phase usually lasts for 1 week, and the late phase lasts for weeks to months. In the early phase, the severity of AP primarily depends on the presence and duration of organ failure due to a systemic inflammatory response that is not necessarily correlated with the infection or the extent of necrosis. Thus, prediction of organ failure in the early phase is very important to evaluate the risk stratification of AP. Clinically, acute physiology and chronic health examination II (APACHE II) and Ranson scores have been commonly used to assess and predict the severity of AP. In addition, serum levels of the inflammatory mediators interleukin (IL) 6 and IL-10 proved to be accurate for predicting organ dysfunction in AP patients,[6–8] an increased neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio and an decreased of peripheral blood CD4+ T cell considered to be an independent risk for persisitent organ failure. However, these indicators have not been widely used in clinical practice because of difficulty in calculating of APACHE II scores and the short half-lives of IL-6 and IL-10.