Actim Pancreatitis for diagnosing acute pancreatitis

The technology described in this briefing is the Actim Pancreatitis rapid test. It is to diagnose acute pancreatitis in people presenting to emergency departments with acute abdominal pain or in people who have had endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP).

The innovative aspects are that it is a urine dipstick test which means the likelihood of pancreatitis can be rapidly assessed. It does not need processing in a laboratory.

The intended place in therapy would be instead of amylase or lipase blood tests to diagnose acute pancreatitis.

The main points from the evidence summarised in this briefing are from 6 studies including 3,134 patients in a meta-analysis and 5 observational studies. They show that Actim Pancreatitis could be a reliable way to diagnose or rule out acute pancreatitis. Results from the meta-analysis showed a pooled sensitivity of 82.3% and specificity of 93.5% for diagnosing acute pancreatitis in people presenting to emergency departments with acute abdominal pain.

Key uncertainties around the evidence or technology are that there are no data from the UK.

The cost of Actim Pancreatitis is £4.50 per test (excluding VAT). The cost of standard care is £1.10 to £4.81 for serum amylase or lipase tests.