Assessing the correlation between fecal calprotectin, blood markers and disease activity in pediatric inflammatory bowel disease.

BACKGROUND

Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are the 2 main types of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), a chronic inflammatory condition of the gastrointestinal tract. Management of IBD necessitates frequent clinical monitoring, including blood tests and occasionally endoscopy. Fecal calprotectin (FC) is a non-invasive measurement of luminal inflammatory activity, and can therefore be used as a useful monitoring tool. This study aimed to assess the relationship between FC, IBD activity indices and the commonly used blood markers in pediatric IBD.

METHODS

Electronic patient records were accessed to retrospectively collect patient data from a tertiary pediatric hospital from 2015-2021. CD and UC disease activity was quantified using the Pediatric CD Activity Index (PCDAI) and Pediatric UC Activity Index (PUCAI), respectively. The Paris classification was used for phenotype identification.

RESULTS

A total of 208 patients were included in the study, 115 with CD (18% <10 years and 82% 10-17 years) and 93 with UC (32% <10 years and 68% 10-17 years). There was a positive correlation between FC and PCDAI (r=0.546, P<0.001) and between FC and PUCAI (r=0.485, P<0.001). FC and activity indices were correlated positively with inflammatory markers/platelets and negatively with albumin and hemoglobin. FC correlated positively with PCDAI in all CD phenotypes, including isolated ileal disease.

CONCLUSION

In pediatric IBD, FC shows a positive correlation with the clinical picture and blood markers in all disease phenotypes, and can provide an accurate non-invasive measure of disease activity.