INVESTIGATION OF FECAL CALPROTECTIN TEST USED FOR INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE

Kübranur Ünal, Leyla İbrahimkhanlı

Objectives: Fecal calprotectin (FC) is an important biomarker used to  evaluate intestinal mucosal inflammation in  stool samples.  FC is commonly used in the detection of newly active Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)  and in follow up of therapy success in IBD patients. In this study was investigated the purpose  of FC test used for IBD in  our hospital.
Material and Methods:  440 patients with symptoms of IBD and  had FC test analysis were included in the study,  test results were retrospectively analyzed.
Results:  Considering the purpose of using the FC test in this study , the rate of FC use was  49.1%  (n:216) in patients with suspected IBD who applied for the diagnosis.  Also, this rate was 50.9% (n:224) for patients who followed up with the diagnosis of IBD among all patients. When the 216 patients who used FC to confirm the diagnosis were compared in terms of diagnosis, the number of patients who were later diagnosed with IBD (16%, n:35) was statistically significantly lower than the number of patients diagnosed with non-IBD (84%, n:181) (p<0.05).
Conclusion: FC test is a useful biomarker in clinical decision making in patients with suspected or confirmed IBD and reduces unnecessary procedures. Many studies use an algorithm based on FC concentration for clinical decision making in IBD. It was determined that the FC tests used for  confirm the diagnosis  also to be useful excluding IBD in this study. As a result, FC is effective in excluding IBD and in the follow-up of the disease in our hospital.