Causes of hypoamylasaemia in a hospital population

Abstract

Aims. We noted serum amylase activity results in our laboratory that fell below the lower reference limit, although there was no obvious explanation for this and the literature on this topic is relatively sparse. Methods. We studied hospital laboratory requests and reports of individuals showing hypoamylasaemia over a one-year period. Results. We report one of the few studies to look at hypoamylasaemia in a hospital population. We found that 5.4% of the hospital serum amylase activity results were below the reference range quoted by our laboratory. Conclusions. Some of the associations we observed with hypoamylasaemia were diabetes mellitus, cystic fibrosis, hypertriglyceridaemia and use of the antibiotic gentamicin. We suggest that clinicians and laboratories should be aware of the causes of hypoamylasaemia to aid interpretation of abnormally low amylase activity in their patients.

Key Words::

• Amylase
• diabetes mellitus
• gentamicin
• lipaemia
• pancreas

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.