Specificity of a pancreatic lipase point-of-care test and agreement with pancreatic lipase immunoreactivity in cats without clinical evidence of pancreatitis.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to determine the specificity of a rapid point-of-care test for the estimation of feline pancreatic lipase (SNAP fPL) in healthy and sick cats without clinical evidence of pancreatitis. A second objective was to evaluate the agreement between SNAP fPL and serum pancreatic lipase immunoreactivity (fPLI), as measured by Spec fPL. METHODS: A total of 150 cats were prospectively enrolled into this study. Of them, 82 cats were healthy while 68 cats had various diseases but no clinical signs (eg, anorexia, depression, vomiting) raising a suspicion of pancreatitis. RESULTS: SNAP fPL was normal in 133/150 cats (specificity 89%) without obvious clinical pancreatitis. SNAP fPL was normal in 74/82 healthy cats (specificity 90%) and in 59/68 cats that were sick but without typical signs of pancreatitis (specificity 87%). The agreement between SNAP fPL and Spec fPL was substantial (k = 0.64) in healthy cats and almost perfect (k = 0.93) in sick cats. The overall agreement between SNAP fPL and Spec fPL was almost perfect (k = 0.81). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: The specificity of SNAP fPL in this group of cats was high. There was a substantial and almost perfect agreement between the SNAP fPL and Spec fPL in healthy cats and sick cats without suspected pancreatitis, respectively. In the small percentage of cats with abnormal SNAP fPL and/or Spec fPL results, the possibility of subclinical pancreatitis cannot be excluded.

Serum feline pancreatic lipase immunoreactivity and trypsin-like immunoreactivity concentrations in cats with experimentally induced chronic kidney disease.

BACKGROUND: Serum feline pancreatic lipase immunoreactivity (fPLI) and trypsin-like immunoreactivity (fTLI) concentrations are commonly used in cats for the evaluation of pancreatic disease. The effect of kidney disease on these tests in cats are unknown. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of experimentally induced chronic kidney disease (CKD) on serum fPLI and fTLI concentrations. ANIMALS: Surplus serum samples from 20 cats with CKD experimentally induced for an unrelated project and a group of healthy control cats. METHODS: Serum fTLI and fPLI concentrations were compared between groups. RESULTS: Mean (±SD) serum fTLI concentrations in 20 cats with CKD (117.8 ± 63.6 µg/L) were significantly higher than those in healthy cats (n = 32; 46.9 ± 17.5 µg/L; P < .0001). Serum fTLI concentrations in cats with CKD were above the upper limit of the reference interval in 13 of 20 cats (65%). Serum fPLI concentrations were not significantly different between cats with induced CKD (n = 18; 8.6 µg/L; range, 5.4-9.9 µg/L) and healthy cats (n = 41; 7.4 µg/L; range, 5.0-15.2 µg/L; P = .12). All cats with experimentally induced CKD had serum fPLI concentrations within the reference interval. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE: Decreased renal function has a clinically relevant impact on serum fTLI concentrations and potentially could interfere with a diagnosis of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI). Serum fPLI concentration was not affected by experimentally induced CKD and thus serum fPLI may be used for the diagnosis of pancreatitis in cats with kidney disease. Additional studies are needed to verify these results in cats with naturally occurring CKD.