clinical relevance of faecal calprotectin level in infantile colic: a cross-sectional survey

Background: there is limited knowledge on the potential applicability of fecal calprotectin (f-cp) as an inflammatory screening parameter in infantile colic (ic). this study aimed to evaluate f-cp in neonates with ic as a useful diagnostic indicator regarding this condition.methods: the present study was conducted on 100 cases, including 50 newborns with ic and 50 non-colicky neonates. the diagnosis of ic was fulfilled by the wessel criteria. the level of f-cp was determined by a specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kit (calprotectin elisa, euroimmun, germany). the statistical analysis was performed in spss software (version 19). results: out of 100 neonates, 57 cases were male and 43 subjects were female. the age spectrum ranged from 19-90 days (40.4±15.9). colicky newborns were slightly younger (p=0.06) with higher birth weight compared to the infants without colic (p<0.0001). the level of f-cp was significantly higher in colicky neonates (113.7±98.2 µg/g) than non-colicky cases (71.4±45.5 µg/g) (p=0.007). overall, 37%, 30%, 26%, and 7% of the newborns showed f-cp levels<50, 50-100, 100-200, and >200 µg/g, respectively. there was a significant difference regarding the distribution of these f-cp categories between neonates with ic and the cases without ic (p=0.02). there were no significant correlations between the f-cp and newborn age, pregnancy age, present or birth weights, and number of pregnancies. receiver operating characteristic analysis rendered an area under the curve of 0.642 (95% ci: 0.534-0.748) (p=0.01). at the cut-off value of 74 µg/g, f-cp showed sensitivity of 60% and specificity of 59% for the detection of ic.conclusion: the results of this study revealed that the f-cp might be useful in the diagnosis of the ic.