Evaluate The effectiveness of the calprotectin test in the stool to diagnose intestinal inflammation

Abstract

Background: Fecal calprotectin (FCP) serves as a non-invasive biomarker for detecting intestinal inflammation, particularly in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), aiding in distinguishing active disease from non-inflammatory conditions and reducing unnecessary endoscopies (1,2,3). Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of FCP testing using a 50 μg/g cutoff in stratifying patients with suspected intestinal inflammation and correlating it with systemic inflammatory markers including C-reactive protein (CRP), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and neutrophil percentage. Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study analyzed 50 patients stratified by FCP levels (<50 μg/g, n=15; >50 μg/g, n=35). Inflammatory markers were compared using Chi-square/Fisher's exact tests for categorical variables, Student t-test for normally distributed continuous data, and Mann-Whitney U test for non-normal distributions. Statistical significance was set at p≤0.05 using IBM SPSS v20.0. Results: Patients with FCP >50 μg/g exhibited significantly higher CRP (median 8.30 mg/L vs. 2.30 mg/L, p<0.001) and ESR (median 25.0 mm/h vs. 8.0 mm/h, p=0.008), with no differences in age (p=0.072), gender (p=0.951), or neutrophil percentage (p=0.185). These findings support FCP's role in identifying inflammation corroborated by systemic markers (2,3). Conclusion: FCP at 50 μg/g effectively stratifies intestinal inflammation, showing strong correlations with CRP and ESR. This supports its clinical utility in primary care settings for IBD screening and monitoring, aligning with recent meta-analyses reporting high sensitivity (92-97%) and specificity (61-85%) (1,4,5,6).

Keywords: Fecal calprotectin, intestinal inflammation, inflammatory bowel disease, C-reactive protein, erythrocyte sedimentation rate.