Amylase content of mixed saliva in children.

Abstract

Abstract. Rossiter, M. A., Barrowman, J. A., Dand, A. and Wharton, B. A. (Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children, Hackney Road, London E.2 and the London Hospital, Whitechapel, London, E.l., England). Amylase content of mixed saliva in children. Acta Paediatr Scand, 63: 389, 1974.–Salivary amylase levels were determined in normal subjects from birth until adult life and in children with conditions sometimes associated with low pancreatic amylase such as malnutrition, coeliac disease and cystic fibrosis. Mixed saliva was collected under carefully standardised conditions and amylase was measured by the method of Dahlqvist. There was a wide scatter of values in the 84 normal subjects, but concentrations rose from very low levels at birth to reach adult levels by the age of 6 months to 1 year. Salivary amylase activity rose normally over ten weeks in one premature infant fed milk by gastrostomy. Thirteen children with coeliac disease and 9 children with cystic fibrosis mostly had normal salivary amylase concentrations. Six out of 12 malnourished children with jejunal villous atrophy of uncertain aetiology had low levels which rose to normal as recovery began.