Elastase: a predictive marker of inflammation and/or infection.

The present study was undertaken to estimate elastase in biological fluids and assess its usefulness as an indicator of inflammation/infection. Elastase was measured in seminal plasma, serum, urine, and cervical specimens using a specific substrate and was expressed in arbitrary units (AU). It was found to be stable over a period of 3 weeks. The intra- and interassay variation of elastase assay was between 2.3 to 6.8% and 7.3 to 9.9%, respectively. The assay was validated by comparing it with other methods that are available for the detection of infections. Sensitivity of the assay indicating inflammation/infection in these samples varied between 70.9 to 87.3%. The results obtained suggest that the presence of elastase in specimens may be used as a nonspecific indicator and could be used to screen inflammation/infection in a limited resource setting. Copyright 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc.