Copyright
©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Oct 28, 2015; 21(40): 11246-11259
Published online Oct 28, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i40.11246
Published online Oct 28, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i40.11246
Disease monitoring in inflammatory bowel disease
Shannon Chang, Lisa Malter, David Hudesman, Division of Gastroenterology, New York University, New York City, NY 10016, United States
Author contributions: Chang S, Malter L and Hudesman D each contributed meaningfully to the manuscript; Chang S and Hudesman D were partners in writing the manuscript; and Malter L edited the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflict of interest to report.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. David Hudesman, Director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Program, Division of Gastroenterology, NYU Langone Medical Center, 240 East 38th Street, Floor 23, New York University, New York City, NY 10016, United States. david.hudesman@nyumc.org
Telephone: +1-212-2633095 Fax: +1-212-2633096
Received: June 6, 2015
Peer-review started: June 8, 2015
First decision: July 13, 2015
Revised: July 26, 2015
Accepted: September 13, 2015
Article in press: September 14, 2015
Published online: October 28, 2015
Peer-review started: June 8, 2015
First decision: July 13, 2015
Revised: July 26, 2015
Accepted: September 13, 2015
Article in press: September 14, 2015
Published online: October 28, 2015
Core Tip
Core tip: C-reactive protein (CRP) is not specific for intestinal inflammation but does have modest correlation with clinical and endoscopic findings in inflammatory bowel disease patients. CRP can be falsely low despite active mucosal inflammation and is more reliable in cases of transmural inflammation. Fecal calprotectin (FC) is more specific than CRP for intestinal inflammation, except in isolated ileal disease. FC better correlates with endoscopic findings than CRP and is useful in monitoring Crohn’s patients for postoperative recurrence. Optimal FC cutoffs are still being determined.