A study examined 296 patients with acute pancreatitis caused by high levels of fat in the blood (hypertriglyceridemia) and found that a pleural effusion (accumulation of fluid in the pleural cavity) detected within 24 hours of hospital admission is a strong predictor of severe course of the disease and organ failure.[1] Pleural effusion showed the strongest positive correlation with severe disease with an odds ratio of 6.82.[1] The accuracy of pleural effusion prediction was higher than that of C-reactive protein in predicting a severe course, but lower than the BISAP score.[1] Pleural effusion achieved an area under the curve of 0.792 for predicting a severe course and 0.718 for predicting organ failure.[1] There was no significant difference between unilateral and bilateral pleural effusion in predicting the risk of developing a severe course.[1] The authors conclude that pleural effusion is a simple and readily available radiographic marker that can identify high-risk patients and offers practical utility, particularly in situations where other diagnostic scores or complete laboratory results are not available.[1]