Study of blood metabolism and urinary excretion of chymopapain following intradiscal injection using a high-sensitivity enzyme immunoassay.

To develop chymopapain-induced chemonucleolysis as an established treatment, it is necessary to determine the kinetics of chymopapain in blood and urine following intradiscal injection. To investigate the rate of blood metabolism and urinary excretion of chymopapain following intradiscal injection, we developed a high-sensitivity enzyme immunoassay for chymopapain. The sensitivity for this assay was 1 pg/tube (40 amol).