Zubair Ahmad Khan, Azhar Saeed, Saad Bin Nasir.
Serum amylase sensitivity in diagnosed cases of Acute pancreatitis; a Peshawar Study.
Pak J Surg Jan ;35(1):4-7.

Objective: To evaluate the sensitivity of serum amylase in the diagnosed cases of acute pancreatitis and to analyze the gender wise accuracy of serum amylase in the diagnosed cases of acute pancreatitis. Study Design: It is a descriptive, institutional based study. Place and duration of study: The study under consideration was conducted in the Department of Surgery, Rehman Medical Institute, Peshawar (Pakistan) from January 2017 to June 2018. Material and Methods: A total of 147 patients presented with acute pancreatitis were taken into account of this study with simple random sampling technique used. All the patients whose pancreatic enzymes were raised due to other causes or diagnosed as other diseases were excluded from the study. Data was analyzed using the latest version of SPSS (Version 25). Results: The total number of patients diagnosed as acute pancreatitis in the surgical unit of Rehman Medical Institute, Peshawar in the period ranging from January 2017 till June 2018 was 147. Amongst which 51.02% were females and 48.98% were males. Conclusion: Our study concluded, that serum amylase has a lower sensitivity and misses the diagnosis of about two thirds of the diagnosis. Hence it is a poor screening test and health care providers should not rely solely on it and order more sensitive tests. In the peripheral areas where other tests are no available efforts should be made to provide those areas with more sensitive tests such as serum lipase and imaging rather than serum amylase.

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