Abstract
BACKGROUND: No data after hospitalization for acute pancreatitis (AP) in dogs comparing clinical signs to lipase results exists. OBJECTIVES: Evaluate disease severity, lipase activity, and pancreatic lipase immunoreactivity (PLI) after hospitalization for suspected AP. ANIMALS: One hundred and six client-owned dogs with a minimum of one re-check 2 weeks after hospitalization for AP. METHODS: Combined retrospective and prospective study. Clinical signs graded using a clinical disease activity score (CDAS = CIBDAI complemented by abdominal pain) were compared to DGGR-lipase activity (LIPC Roche) and PLI (SpecPL) at 2 weeks (t(2), n = 106) after discharge. Additional re-checks were available 6 weeks (t(3), n = 56), 12 weeks (t(4), n = 24), and 24 weeks (t(5), n = 13) after discharge. RESULTS: Lipase activity and PLI correlated strongly at all time points (r(s) 0.863-0.937, p < 0.0001). Discordant results in regard to published reference intervals (RI) were rare (2.8% at t(2), 1.7% at t(3), 4.2% at t(4), 0% at t(5)) and seemed clinically irrelevant. Dogs with still elevated lipase activity and PLI at t(2) (24/106.22.6%) and t(3) (21/56.37.5%) were significantly older compared to dogs with lipase within RI. Weak and moderate correlation between CDAS and lipase activity/PLI was found only at t(2) (r(s) 0.391, p = 0.0009; r(s) 0.279, p = 0.004) and t(5) (r(s) 0.603, p = 0.032; r(s) 0.57 p = 0.045). Most dogs (79.2%) with still elevated lipase at t(2) had no or minimal clinical signs (CDAS 0-3). The same applied to all later re-checks. CONCLUSION AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE: Both lipase assays did not differ when compared to clinical status. Most dogs with hyperlipasemia after hospitalization for AP have no or minimal clinical signs.