CLINICAL UTILITY OF THE SERUM PANCREOLAURYL TEST IN DIAGNOSIS AND STAGING OF CHRONIC-PANCREATITIS

Indirect pancreatic function tests are frequently used in the clinical routine as complementary tools for the diagnosis of chronic pancreati tis (CP) because of their noninvasiveness and simplicity. We analyzed the clinical efficacy and routine application of a modified serum panc reolauryl test (PLT) in the diagnosis and staging of CP. We studied a total of 90 patients with CP diagnosed by endoscopic retrograde pancre atography and 54 patients with extrapancreatic gastrointestinal disord ers as controls. Sensitivity and specificity of the serum PLT in the d iagnosis of CP were 82% and 91%, respectively, using a value of 4.5 mu g/ml as cutoff. In the diagnosis of patients with mild to moderate mor phological changes of CP, the sensitivity of the serum PLT (52%) was i mproved by the concomitant analysis of serum pancreatic amylase in a l ogistic model (70%). Serum PLT closely correlated with the degree of p ancreatic ductal abnormalities (p < 0.001), and showed a sensitivity o f 81% and specificity of 89% in the staging of CP (mild-moderate vs. m arked CP; cutoff 2.5 mug/ml). We conclude that the modified serum PLT is a reliable test which should be considered as a first-line option f or the diagnosis and follow-up of patients with CP.