Serum Amyloid A Combo Test Kit

Serum Amyloid A (SAA) is an early and sensitive blood biomarker for tissue injury and inflammation and has been indicated in many inflammatory diseases.

The level of SAA circulating in the blood is known to increase dramatically in response to tissue damage or inflammation, classifying it as an acute phase protein. SAA concentrations may increase up to 1000-fold following inflammation, infection, tissue injury and cell necrosis and decline rapidly following recovery.

History

It has been observed in several veterinary species – e.g. horses – that SAA is a very useful inflammatory marker that may be used for detection of clinical and possibly subclinical disease, monitoring of disease activity and response to therapy, prognostication, and detection of spread of infections in herds. The kinetic profile of the SAA response makes SAA an excellent indicator of inflammation. Hepatic SAA synthesis begins shortly after an inflammatory insult. As a result plasma concentrations start to increase within few hours, and they peak 36–48 h after injury, as demonstrated previously in horses after experimental induction of inflammatory or infectious disease. After resolution of disease serum SAA concentrations decrease very quickly, thus closely reflecting recovery. This is due to the short plasma half-life of the SAA protein – values reported in laboratory rodents range from 30 min to 2 h. Serum levels of SAA will therefore decrease quickly after synthesis ceases. These characteristics make SAA well suited not only for diagnosing the presence of inflammation, but also for real-time monitoring of inflammation.

Brief