1 The Hospital de Clinicas of Buenos Aires.
The Shwachman test was carried out on 30 healthy newborn infants, including premature infants. The results were negative in 28 cases on the first day, but positive in all cases on the 4th. As it is known that normally the newborn infant, even when premature, possesses duodenal trypsin, the absence of same in the meconium indicates that it may be destroyed by intestinal stagnation. This means that the assay of fecal trypsin is of no use for the precocious diagnosis (within the four first days of life) of mucoviscidosis or cystic fibrosis of the pancreas.
Submitted on July 12, 1953