a survey of fecal calprotectin in children with newly diagnosed celiac disease with villous atrophy

Background: fecal calprotectin (fc) has been used as a diagnostic marker in intestinal inflammatory conditions. objectives: as a few studies have been dedicated to assess the role of fc in coeliac disease (cd), the current study aimed to address this issue. methods: this study included 70 newly diagnosed cd (marsh score 3) and 70 healthy children. the study was performed at the pediatric ward of amir-al-momenin hospital in zabol city, the southeast of iran, during june 2016-september 2017. the fc level was determined using a specific elisa kit. results: women constituted 64.3% (45/70) and 55.1% (38/70) of cd and healthy children, respectively (p = 0.1). three was no significant difference in the mean age between children with cd (6.3 ± 3.4) and without cd (8.3 ± 4.5) (p = 0.2). the mean level of fc was significantly higher in patients (239.1 ± 177.3 μg/g) than in healthy controls (38.5 ± 34.6 μg/g, p < 0.001). the titer of anti-ttg was significantly higher in patients than in healthy children (205.9 ± 156.2 u/ml vs. 6.7 ± 2.1 u/ml, respectively, p < 0.001). there was a significant correlation between the fc level and anti-ttg titer (r = 0.611, p < 0.001). however, the correlation was not statistically significant between fc and age (r = -0.154, 0.07). the roc curve analysis revealed an auc value of 0.893 (95% ci: 0.827 - 0.960, p < 0.001). at the level of 50 μg/g, fc rendered the sensitivity and specificity of 90% and 92%, respectively, for the diagnosis of cd. positive predictive value (ppv) and negative predictive value (npv) of fc at this cutoff value were 95.5% and 90.5%, respectively. conclusions: fc can be considered a screening complementary tool for detecting cd with high sensitivity and specificity.