Clinical Chemistry
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Clinical Chemistry 45: 406-407, 1999;
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(Clinical Chemistry. 1999;45:406-407.)
© 1999 American Association for Clinical Chemistry, Inc.

Technical Briefs

In Vitro Influence of Different Kinds of Fats on Results and Imprecision of Classic and Acid Steatocrits

Nora Bettinardi1,a, Carla Colombo2 and Carlo Corbetta1

1 Clinical Research Laboratory, Instituti Clinici di Perfezionamento, 20122 Milan, Italy, and
2 Department of Pediatrics, University of Sassari, Sassari 07100, Italy;
a address correspondence to this author at: Clinica Mangiagalli-Lab. Instituto Ostetrico Ginecologico, Clinical Research Laboratory, Via Commenda 12, 20122-Milano, Italy

The steatocrit is a semiquantitative method for measurement of fecal fat content (1); a few studies have reported its clinical applicability in the semiquantitative assessment of the degree of steatorrhea in premature infants and in several pediatric conditions, including cystic fibrosis and acute and chronic diarrhea (2)(3). However, one of these studies reported considerable difficulties with this method and could not find any correlation between the steatocrit and fecal fat excretion, which in contrast was well correlated with other semiquantitative tests, such as the Sudan microscopic method (4). It is interesting to note that most of the studies that demonstrated a good correlation between fecal fat excretion and steatocrit were carried out in Italy, where olive oil represents the main dietary fat, whereas the study in which such a relationship was not found was carried out in England, where dietary fats are saturated fatty acids of animal origin. This suggests that differences in the diet may influence the steatocrit. Methodological inadequacies may also underlie the above-mentioned discrepancies. In fact, although the steatocrit is a rather simple method, its results may be influenced by a series of chemical and physical variables, including the thoroughness of homogenization, acid strength, and the heating effects of hematocrit centrifuges. Recently, acidification of fecal homogenate was shown (5)(6) to lead to much better fat extraction through centrifugation, which led to greater sensitivity than the classic method and better prediction of fat content as measured by a reference . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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Copyright © 1999 by the American Association for Clinical Chemistry.