Faecal Calprotectin

[Colt]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faecal_Calprotectin

I had one done. I had never heard of it before. My results were <16 ug/g.

50 or less is Normal
51-120 is Borderline
121 or greater is 'suggestive of inflammatory bowel disease'

I'm starting to doubt it myself now. Maybe I just have the craziest case of IBS in history.

 

[D Bergy]

I hope you do not have IBS, but I have been misled by at least two tests that were inaccurate in my family. Like many other tests, it may be able to prove you have IBS, but may not be able to prove you do not have it.

It sucks that this is turning out to be such a difficult diagnosis for you.

Dan

 

[BWS1982]

Colt since this is of a nutritional basis (on paper at least, looking at the wiki link and what it measures), can diet affect or influence the results? Meaning any specific mineral abundances or deficiencies hold sway to the outcome, such as the calcium etc...?

Since I've never heard of this test, that may be a misunderstood thought....

 

[Colt]

I'm not surprised you've never heard of it. Apparently it's just now available. It's basically an inflammation-related protein that passes through the bowel wall. They just count up the total amount of inflammation in your intestines instead of looking at specific parts and get an average intestinal inflammation number. Mine being very low.

 

[BWS1982]

I wonder if it empirically has different levels of concentration based on area of the intestine, like if a very healthy small bowel can offset a very inflamed large bowel, and the results are collective, so the number is averaged? Or maybe they can pin-point the protein analysis so they ignore specified areas?

I should look more into this when I get a chance, if it's accurate it sounds very viable for non-invasive techniques...though due to it's recent inception I wonder if it's known to be reliable in all circles, despite it's true/real reliability, some GI's will be slow to adopt it as a form of Dx (like all tests) until it has a "longer track record", have to let it's presence trickle down the medical community maybe....

 

[Mazen]

Here is a link for a study on this and Crohn's:

http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/98/6/435.pdf

 

[braveheart]

This thread could be related to this:
http://www.crohnsforum.com/showthread.php?p=83258#post83258