Forgot your password?
Please enter your username or email address. Instructions for resetting the password will be immediately emailed to you.
Please note: While some information will still be current in a year, other information may already be out of date in three months time. If you are in any doubt, please feel free to ask.
Elastase
- Question
- My pediatrician requested a measure of elastase for my 6 year old daughter who for four years now has a chronic cough and sputum, sometimes with fever all winter despite the antibiotics, nasal sprays that bring no improvement. However, the summer, she's fine. Chest radiography and sinuses are normal.
Is elastase used only to diagnose cystic fibrosis?
Thank you for your answer. - Answer
- Dear questioner,
The measurement of fecal elastase aims to study the pancreatic exocrine function (ie: the prodcution of pancreatic secretion to help digestion). This function is abnormal in 80% of patients with cystic fibrosis, but it can also be normal.
Thus, a normal elastase does not exclude the diagnosis of cystic fibrosis.
The gold-standard test to exclude the diagnosis of cystic fibrosis is in the first line a sweat test, measuring the chloride concentration in the sweat by a so-called pilocarpine ionotophoresis.
Moreover, apart from cystic fibrosis, there are other diseases where pancreatic elastase may be low.
Prof. M. Abely - 14.01.2013
