Analyzes of blood, urine and feces with pancreatitis: the results of indicators

Pancreatitis is an extremely common disease. It has numerous features of modern life: eating disorders, eating dry, eating semi-finished and fast food, smoking and uncontrolled use of medicines. In order to recognize the disease from the very beginning and start treatment activities, the patient must undergo a check-up including certain tests in pancreatitis. The results of these tests will determine whether there is a need for treatment, and which drugs are required.

How to determine pancreatitis by analysis?

Diagnosing pancreatitis is not so easy - especially if the disease has just begun. Therefore, the doctor should use the entire possible arsenal of diagnostic tools, including laboratory tests for pancreatitis.

What analyzes hand over at a pancreatitis?

• General clinical analysis of blood - helps to find signs of the existing inflammatory process (in particular, the exceeded number of leukocytes, accelerated ESR, etc.).
• Biochemistry of blood - allows you to see the increased content of enzymatic substances, such as amylase, trypsin, lipase.
• A blood test for glucose - indicates a violation in the secretion of insulin by the pancreas.
• Analysis of urinary fluid - allows you to find amylase, which is an indirect sign of the acute form of pancreatitis.
• A coprogram is a study of stool, which allows to detect insufficiently digested food components, which indicates a disturbed process of enzyme production.

Of course, only laboratory tests are not enough to diagnose pancreatitis. As a rule, it is necessary to obtain the results of instrumental diagnostics. Therefore, the doctor will unconditionally appoint and other diagnostic procedures, for example, ultrasound, gastroscopy, retrograde cholangiopancreatography, computed tomography, and various functional tests.

Analyzes in pancreatitis: indications for conduction

Diagnosis of pancreatic health should be carried out using an integrated approach. After all, the doctor needs to determine both the functionality and condition of the tissues of the organ. The pancreas is a miniature, but very complex element in the human body, on which depends how qualitatively the digestive processes will take place, how much enzymes will be produced, how food will be absorbed by the body. Among other things, the glandular organ plays an important role in maintaining common metabolic and hormonal processes.

The pancreas is considered a unique organ. If one area of the gland is damaged, other normal tissues replace the function of the damaged ones and begin to work "for two", so even if there is a problem in the organ, a person may not feel significant digestion disorders. However, it happens the other way round: a very small area of the gland tissue is affected, and the patient already has serious problems with the full clinical picture of pancreatitis. It is for this reason that it is important to examine the pancreas as carefully as possible.

The clinical picture of acute and chronic pancreatitis is not specific. Therefore, it often becomes difficult for a doctor to establish a correct diagnosis without prescribing additional studies. Therefore, analyzes sometimes play a fundamental role in the diagnosis.

The medical specialist has a difficult task: not only to determine the presence of pancreatitis, but also to find out the form of the disease - chronic or acute. The signs of acute pancreatitis may coincide with the symptoms that are observed when the chronic form of the disease worsens, therefore, pancreatitis tests are prescribed approximately the same in order to carefully study all the changes that have occurred inside the body.

Analyzes for acute pancreatitis are taken as early as possible in order to start treatment in a timely manner. It is important to prepare adequately for diagnosis, so that the results of the tests are extremely reliable:

• should refrain from drinking alcoholic liquids, strong tea and coffee;
• should exclude any food intake (blood tests are taken on an empty stomach, after an 8-hour break in food);
• It is necessary to exclude physical loads until the time of blood donation for analysis;
• Before passing the urine test it is necessary to wash thoroughly so that the secretion from the genitals does not get into the urine.

It should be noted that the results of many analyzes can affect such drugs as vitamin C, paracetamol, antibiotics.

Analyzes for chronic pancreatitis must necessarily include a blood test. This analysis will reveal whether there are any inflammatory processes in the body in general, even if it is not an inflammatory reaction in the pancreas. In chronic pancreatitis, in addition to standard tests, the doctor can refer the patient for various laboratory tests:

• Analysis for immunoreactive trypsin - is prescribed relatively rarely, since its effectiveness in pancreatitis is not more than 40%. This type of study is included in the list of diagnostic procedures that are used for cholecystitis or insufficient renal function.
• Analysis of the level of trypsin inhibitors in the blood helps to determine the scale of destructive processes in the pancreas.
• The analysis of urine for the maintenance of trypsinogen in it - is used less and less often because of the considerable cost price, but it can completely point to the presence of pancreatitis.

Analyzes with exacerbation of pancreatitis, as a rule, are the same as in acute attacks of this disease. In order not to waste time, the doctor first assigns an analysis of the evaluation of the enzyme level in the blood:

• during the first day - the level of pancreatic amylase;
• further - the level of elastase and lipase.

Analyzes for pancreatitis and cholecystitis, in the first place, suggest the definition of diastase. The normal indicator for one milliliter of blood is 40-160 units, and in a milliliter of urinary fluid - 32-64 units. The analysis is taken on an empty stomach. In the acute phase of the disease, diastasis rises more than 4-5 times. In chronic course of the disease, anemia in the blood is additionally determined, and in the urinary fluid - bilirubin and α-amylase.

In acute period, or with exacerbation of chronic cholecystopancreatitis, leukocytosis (displacement of the formula to the left), accelerated ESR, is detected. Urinalysis shows the presence of bilirubin and bile pigments, an increase in urobilin. Biochemical analysis indicates a high content of bilirubin, fibrinogen and haproglobin.

The chronic process is accompanied by a sharp decrease in the number of B and T-lymphocytes and a decrease in the content of immunoglobulin A.

[1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]

Blood test for pancreatitis

General clinical analysis of blood in pancreatitis has only an auxiliary value, helping the doctor to confirm that there is an inflammatory process inside the body. In addition to inflammation, a blood test can detect anemia.

The parameters of the blood test for pancreatitis differ with corresponding changes:

• Reduces the hemoglobin and erythrocytes - for example, with prolonged chronic course of pancreatitis, as well as with complications associated with the bleeding of the inflammatory focus.
• Increases the leukocyte level, and significantly - as a result of severe inflammation.
• Accelerated sedimentation of erythrocytes, which is considered an additional sign of inflammation.
• Increases hematocrit - if there is a balance of water and electrolytes.

[8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14]

The norm of analysis in pancreatitis

Index	Standard of analysis	In the presence of pancreatitis
Leukocytes	4-8.5 × 10 9	Above normal values
Erythrocyte sedimentation rate	2-15 mm per hour	Above normal values
Antigen pozh. Glands	Not detectable	In acute course - it is found, in case of chronic - it does not show up
Sugar	3.5-5.9 mmol / liter	Above the norm
Cholesterol level	3.0-6.0 mmol / liter	Below norm
Content of globulins	From 7 to 13%	Below normal values
Amylase in the blood	From 28 to 100 U / liter	Above the norm
Pancreatic α-amylase in the urine	Up to 5.83 mk / liter	Above the norm
Feces		The shade is grayish, the consistency is heterogeneous, with undigested particles
The physiological norm of amylase in the urine	From 1 to 17 Ed / hour	Above normal values

Biochemical analysis in pancreatitis

Biochemistry of blood is, perhaps, the main blood test for pancreatitis. It is this kind of research that helps to determine the degree of functionality of organs.

What does biochemical analysis show if a patient has pancreatitis?

• The content of amylase, the enzyme of a gland that breaks down starch, is increasing.
• Increased content of other enzymes, such as lipase, elastase, trypsin, phospholipase.
• Increases blood sugar, as a result of hypoxecretion of insulin.
• The content of bilirubin increases - this happens if increased due to inflammation of the iron interferes with the work of biliary organs.
• The total protein content decreases as a result of protein-energy deficiency.
• Increases the content of transaminases (not in all cases).

Biochemistry at a pancreatitis do or make first of all, before carrying out of other analyzes and researches as soon as the patient arrives for treatment in a hospital.

In destructive processes in the pancreas, the most important is the determination of the serum elastase content. The level of such an enzyme increases against the background of an increase in organ damage. With extensive necrotic foci, the level of elastase is particularly high.

[15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20]

Urinalysis in pancreatitis

The analysis of urine in pancreatitis can be more informative than it seems at first glance. Urinary fluid for analysis is collected in the morning, and also for a day (if necessary). In doing so, do not general analysis of urine (which is not particularly informative in pancreatitis), but an analysis of urinary fluid diastase.

Diastasis is produced in the pancreas and is responsible for the processes of cleavage of complex carbohydrate foods. The normal value is 64 units. Or less, but with pancreatitis, the level of diastase can increase to several thousand units. If pancreatitis occurs in a chronic form, then diastase may decrease, indicating an insufficient function of the organ.

Urinary diastase should be determined immediately after collection of fluid, as the enzyme composition of urine changes rapidly.

Fecal analysis for pancreatitis

The analysis of feces will help to determine the insufficient function of the pancreas.

Since with pancreatitis it is possible to observe the inadequacy of enzyme secretion, the process of processing food masses in the intestine becomes problematic. To a greater extent, this refers to the digestion of fatty foods.

First, externally, it is already possible to distinguish feces with disturbed digestion from feces with a healthy state of the gastrointestinal tract. For example, pancreatitis is characterized by such features of feces:

• mushy consistency;
• presence of fat particles;
• presence of undigested food;
• sharp unpleasant odor;
• Light color, closer to the gray shade.

These features are a consequence of putrefactive processes, which affect, in the first place, particles of protein foods. In addition, the patients themselves note that the stool has become frequent, up to the appearance of diarrhea. Especially it becomes noticeable after using hard-to-digest products: fried and fatty foods, sweets, smoked products.

Analyzes in pancreatitis do not always include a study of feces, but this diagnosis is prescribed if the doctor needs additional information about the state of the digestive system.

[21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28]