Immunochemical qualitative latex agglutination test for pancreatic lipase in serum evaluated for use in diagnosis of acute pancreatitis.

In 417 patients (213 men, 204 women) consecutively hospitalized with acute abdominal pain we evaluated the clinical usefulness of a latex-agglutination test at admission to screen for concentrations of pancreatic lipase (EC 3.1.1.3) in serum greater than 300 micrograms/L. The diagnoses of acute pancreatitis (in 25 patients, 6%) and other diseases were made without knowledge of the results of the latex test or of quantification of pancreatic lipase in the serum by enzyme immunoassay. In the latex assay, when agglutination was taken as a positive test for acute pancreatitis, we found a diagnostic efficiency of 0.986 (95% confidence limits: 0.971-0.997) for acute pancreatitis. The predictive value of a positive latex test result with respect to acute pancreatitis was 0.807 (0.625-0.926); the predictive value of a negative test was 1.000 (0.991-1.000). Six patients had false-positive test results. No false-negative test results were found by enzyme immunoassay. We conclude that the latex agglutination test is useful as an emergency test for diagnosis of acute pancreatitis in patients with acute abdominal pain; negative results virtually exclude acute pancreatitis.