Friday December 08, 2006


Q: Which common blood test in ICU may be misleading if you use hetastarch (hespan) as volume resuscitation?


A; Amylase

Hetastrach gets attached to amylase and reduce its clearance by kidney and may cause significant elevated amylase level for about one week after infusion. It is a benign effect but may get misdiagnosed as pancreatitis. Differential can be confirmed by lipase level which remains normal.