[Developments in the laboratory diagnosis of diseases of the exocrine pancreas (author's transl)].

Laboratory tests are the object of continuous interest in acute as well as chronic pancreatic disease. Enzymic assays play an important role, particularly in screening for pancreatic disease. The diagnostic contribution of amylase, isoamylases, immunoreactive trypsin and lactoferrin, ribonuclease and galactosyltransferase, as well as the problem of chronic nonpancreatic hyperamylasemia is reviewed. Functional methods detect a normal or abnormal function and in this sense the results should be interpreted. Present evaluation of the pancreozymin-secretin test, the Lundh test, fecal chymotrypsin, determination of stimulated chymotrypsin secretion by peroral synthetic substrates marked with 4-aminobenzoic acid, duodenal excretion of 75Se-methionine and plasma pancreatic polypeptide is given. Up to now, immunologic methods have not fulfilled the expectations in spite of considerable attention paid to them in recent years.