Fecal calprotectin: a biomarker for intestinal inflammation

In the clinical setting may be difficult the discrimination of patients with inflammatory bowel diseases from those with functional intestinal disorders due to the overlapping and non-specific symptoms, such as abdominal pain and altered bowel habit. Several blood markers currently help clinicians in the management of these patients, but the low specificity makes them unreliable for the detection and monitoring of the disease activity. The gold standard to establish a diagnosis of organic bowel disease is colonoscopy with multiple biopsies, but is an invasive and costly procedure. In the last decade, fecal calprotectin (FC), a cytosolic protein mainly found in neutrophil granulocytes, has been proposed as a surrogate marker of intestinal mucosa inflammation and has been associated with several gastrointestinal disorders. We recently addressed FC ability in distinguish inflammatory from functional disorders, taking into consideration different pathological intestinal conditions. In this research highlight we provide a brief review on FC role as a biomarker of intestinal inflammation discussing the clinical applications.