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Fecal calprotectin is a relatively new marker of intestinal inflammation. Recently, many studies have extended its role in predicting relapse of quiescent inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), but the reported results have been inconsistent. Dr Min-hu Chen and colleagues from China performed a meta-analysis of the predictive capacity of fecal calprotectin in IBD relapse.
The research team systematically searched the Medline, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and EMBASE databases for prospective studies that used fecal calprotectin concentrations at remission in predicting relapse of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. A total of 672 IBD patients from 6 different studies were analyzed.  | | Fecal calprotectin appeared to be more accurate in colonic Crohn's disease | | Inflammatory Bowel Diseases |
The pooled sensitivity and specificity of fecal calprotectin to predict relapse of quiescent IBD was 78%, and 73%, respectively. The team noted that the area under the summary receiver-operating characteristic curve was 0.8, and the diagnostic odds ratio was 10.3. The research team found that the capacity of fecal calprotectin to predict relapse was comparable between ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. The team reported that in Crohn's disease patients, the predictive value of fecal calprotectin in isolated small bowel Crohn's disease was not assessed due to insufficiency of available data. Compared with all enrolled Crohn's disease patients, fecal calprotectin appeared to be more accurate in ileocolonic and colonic Crohn's disease.
Dr Chen's team concludes, "As a simple and noninvasive marker, fecal calprotectin is useful to predict relapse in quiescent IBD patients."
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