Diagnostic value of four assays for lipase determination in serum: a comparative reevaluation

We assessed the diagnostic value of four commercially available methods for determining pancreatic lipase (LPS) in serum (the turbidimetric procedure from Boehringer, two enzymatic approaches from Kodak and Poli, and an immunochemical assay) in a population of 46 hospitalized patients with acute abdominal pain. In 31 cases (67.4%), the final diagnosis was acute pancreatitis. When evaluated by means of receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves, no significant differences were found among the procedures. Concerning clinical efficiency, all the assays had values equal to or greater than 90%. Using the calculation of the overlap index (OI) as a statistical approach to quantify the clinical utility of various LPS assays, the test having the greatest potential for differentiating between patients with and without acute pancreatitis was the turbidimetric assay (OI = 0.14).