Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Accuracy of a rapid pancreatic lipase test in cats
By Xenoulis, Panagiotis G et al.·Published in Journal of feline medicine and surgery·2023·Clinic of Medicine·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Specificity of a pancreatic lipase point-of-care test and agreement with pancreatic lipase immunoreactivity in cats without clinical evidence of pancreatitis.
- Species:
- cat
Plain-English summary
A study looked at a quick test for measuring pancreatic lipase levels in cats to see how well it works in healthy cats and those with other health issues but no signs of pancreatitis. Out of 150 cats tested, most had normal results, indicating that the test is quite reliable. The test showed strong agreement with another more detailed test, suggesting it can help identify potential issues even when cats don’t show obvious symptoms. However, in a few cases with abnormal results, there might still be hidden pancreatitis that needs further investigation.
People also search for: cat pancreatitis symptoms · cat pancreatic lipase test · healthy cat blood test results
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to determine the specificity of a rapid point-of-care test for the estimation of feline pancreatic lipase (SNAP fPL) in healthy and sick cats without clinical evidence of pancreatitis. A second objective was to evaluate the agreement between SNAP fPL and serum pancreatic lipase immunoreactivity (fPLI), as measured by Spec fPL. METHODS: A total of 150 cats were prospectively enrolled into this study. Of them, 82 cats were healthy while 68 cats had various diseases but no clinical signs (eg, anorexia, depression, vomiting) raising a suspicion of pancreatitis. RESULTS: SNAP fPL was normal in 133/150 cats (specificity 89%) without obvious clinical pancreatitis. SNAP fPL was normal in 74/82 healthy cats (specificity 90%) and in 59/68 cats that were sick but without typical signs of pancreatitis (specificity 87%). The agreement between SNAP fPL and Spec fPL was substantial (k = 0.64) in healthy cats and almost perfect (k = 0.93) in sick cats. The overall agreement between SNAP fPL and Spec fPL was almost perfect (k = 0.81). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: The specificity of SNAP fPL in this group of cats was high. There was a substantial and almost perfect agreement between the SNAP fPL and Spec fPL in healthy cats and sick cats without suspected pancreatitis, respectively. In the small percentage of cats with abnormal SNAP fPL and/or Spec fPL results, the possibility of subclinical pancreatitis cannot be excluded.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37498286/