new noninvasive test of pancreatic function

We have evaluated the diagnostic value of the fecal elastase test in comparison with the secretin-pancreozymin test in the diagnosis of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency. Pancre-atic elastase was measured immunologically. Inununoreac-tive elastase activity in spot stools from controls ranged from 136 to 4440 g/g; 95 % of all values were within 175 to 1500.tg/g. The elastase assay CVs ranged from 3.3 % to 6.3 % (intraassay) and from 4.1 % to 10.2 % (interassay). The output of elastase correlated well with those of amylase, lipase, and trypsin, yielding respective correlation coeffi-cients of 0.83, 0.82, and 0.84 in controls and 0.86, 0.91, and 0.91 in patients with impaired pancreatic function. In con-trast to fecal chymotrypsin, the test results were unaffected by pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy. These results indicate that fecal immunoreactive elastase may be recom