[The clinical laboratory in the study of pancreatitis]

The useful laboratory tests in the pancreatitis study are revised. A short description of the procedures, its sensibility and specificity, availability and indication is made. In acute pancreatitis the different enzymatic determinations in serum and urine that are used to establish the illness diagnosis and prognosis are described and also, the results of other substances assays like some acute phase reactants that can be useful as prognostic factors. In chronic pancreatitis the different levels in which pancreatic insufficiency can be studied are described as well as the test that can be done in each case. The complexity, specificity and sensibility of direct tests is analyzed. Nevertheless functional exploration methods that constitute a useful alternative as pancreolaurly, PABA or the recently proposed plasmatic amino acids and marked triglicerids with C13 are also mentioned. The clinical laboratory in the diagnosis of pancreatitis is complementary to the image methods and it is considered indispensable to perform at least two precise methods and it is considered indispensable to perform at least two precise methods of enzymatic determination in serum and an indirect test or another non invasive test that should be validated in each group for the study of gastroenterologic patients.