In the study by Hatada and colleagues, infected patients had median HMGB1 levels of 4.54 ng/ml [18]; Yasuda and colleagues, studying infected patients with severe acute pancreatitis, observed mean HMGB1 levels of 7.8 ng/ml [19]; and, finally, in a study performed by our group, the median HMGB1 level in mild sepsis was 2.14 ng/ml [14]. This evidence concerns the gene HMGB1 and acute pancreatitis.