Laboratory Diagnosis of Pancreatitis

Acute pancreatitis is one of the most common diseases in dogs and cats, but diagnosis is challenging. The gold standard for diagnosis of pancreatitis is pancreatic biopsy, which has many limitations. As such, clinical diagnosis of pancreatitis based on a consistent clinical picture (eg, signalment, clinical signs, physical examination findings), supportive laboratory screening diagnostics, pancreatitis-specific laboratory testing, consistent imaging findings, and thorough diagnostic evaluation ruling out alternate differential diagnoses is most often used in clinical patients. Alternate differential diagnoses in patients presenting with clinical findings that might be consistent with pancreatitis may have secondary reactive pancreatitis, which mimics primary pancreatitis.