title: Blood tests for detection of alcoholic cause of acute pancreatitis.
abstract: We investigated the ability of various blood markers to detect an alcoholic cause of acute pancreatitis. Serum carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) was significantly correlated with reported 2 month and 7 day ethanol consumptions and was significantly higher in 42 patients with alcoholic acute pancreatitis and in 24 patients with possibly alcoholic acute pancreatitis than in 20 patients with non-alcoholic disease. At a cutoff over 17 U/L, the specificity of CDT was 100% and the sensitivity was 75% to detect an alcoholic cause of acute pancreatitis. The lipase/amylase ratio index, erythrocyte mean corpuscular volume, and gamma glutamyl transferase could not distinguish alcoholic from non-alcoholic acute pancreatitis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Tampere University Hospital, Finland.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jaakkola
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sillanaukee
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Löf
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Koivula
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Nordback
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000097:blood / Q000150:complications* / Q000175:diagnosis; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010195:Pancreatitis / Q000097:blood / Q000209:etiology*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014168:Transferrin / Q000031:analogs & derivatives* / Q000032:analysis
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D014168:Transferrin; C056759:carbohydrate-deficient transferrin