LAUSR

BACKGROUND Fecal calprotectin (fCal) is an important surrogate biomarker of chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD): Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Non-invasive, immunochromatographic rapid tests are excellent tools for the real-time monitoring of disease activity and reduce the need for invasive and costly colonoscopy procedures. METHODS In this study the accuracy of fCal detection by the semi-quantitative Actim® Calprotectin and the quantitative automated LIAISON® Calprotectin assay was assessed on a panel of clinical stool samples. RESULTS Of the 119 fecal samples tested, Actim® Calprotectin agreed on 94 samples (79.0%) with the reference test. Furthermore, of the positive samples detected with LIAISON® Calprotectin, 94.0% were interpreted as positive by Actim® Calprotectin. CONCLUSIONS Actim® Calprotectin is a rapid test that can be utilized for the initial differentiation between negative and positive samples in an outpatient setting, thus helping to limit more laborious quantitative methods to positive samples.