Measurement of faecal calprotectin is a biochemical test for inflammatory bowel disease. It replaces the need for invasive colonoscopy or radio-labelled white cell scanning in many clinical scenarios.
Calprotectin is a 36kDa calcium and zinc binding protein. It accounts for 60% of neutrophils cytosol. In vitro studies show it has bacteriostatic and fungistatic properties. It is resistant to enzymatic degradation, and can be easily measured in fec...
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Measurement of faecal calprotectin is a biochemical test for inflammatory bowel disease. It replaces the need for invasive colonoscopy or radio-labelled white cell scanning in many clinical scenarios.
Calprotectin is a 36kDa calcium and zinc binding protein. It accounts for 60% of neutrophils cytosol. In vitro studies show it has bacteriostatic and fungistatic properties. It is resistant to enzymatic degradation, and can be easily measured in feces.
Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are a group of conditions that cause a pathological inflammation of the bowel wall. Neutrophils influx into the bowel lumen as a result of the inflammatory process. Measurement of faecal calprotectin has been shown to be strongly correlated with 111-indium-labelled leucocytes - considered the gold standard measurement of intestinal inflammation.
Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis and neoplasms (cancer) have all been shown to raise faecal calprotectin levels. Levels of faecal calprotectin are normal in...
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