Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Pediatr. Mar 9, 2024; 13(1): 90755
Published online Mar 9, 2024. doi: 10.5409/wjcp.v13.i1.90755
Gut microbiota predicts the diagnosis of ulcerative colitis in Saudi children
Mohammad El Mouzan, Ahmed Al Sarkhy, Asaad Assiri
Mohammad El Mouzan, Ahmed Al Sarkhy, Asaad Assiri, Department of Pediatrics, Gastroenterology Unit, King Saud University, Riyadh 11461, Saudi Arabia
Author contributions: El Mouzan M designed and supervised the study and wrote the manuscript; Al Sarkhy A and Assiri A participated equally in recruiting participants and revising the manuscript draft; All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by Researchers Supporting Project, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, No. RSPD2024R864.
Institutional review board statement: The study was approved by the Institutional Board Review of the College of Medicine, King Saud University in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia [No: 10/2647/IRB,26/6/2010]. Guardians and/or children signed informed consent and/or assent before enrollment in the study.
Informed consent statement: Guardians and/or children signed informed consent and/or assent before enrollment in the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Data sharing statement: Datasets are available from the corresponding author at email: drmouzan@gmail.com.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Mohammad El Mouzan, MD, Full Professor, Department of Pediatrics, King Saud University, 1, King Abdullah Street, Riyadh 11461, Saudi Arabia. melmouzan@ksu.edu.sa
Received: December 12, 2023
Peer-review started: December 12, 2023
First decision: December 19, 2023
Revised: January 1, 2024
Accepted: February 6, 2024
Article in press: February 6, 2024
Published online: March 9, 2024
Processing time: 85 Days and 8.7 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: This study reports the predictive power of fecal microbiota, bacteria and bacteriophages, in predicting the diagnosis of ulcerative colitis in children. This was demonstrated by the calculation of the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). High values of the AUC up to 97.6% and 94.5% for bacteria and bacteriophage, respectively, indicate excellent predictive power in differentiating children with ulcerative colitis (UC) from controls. This finding may lead to the development of noninvasive microbiota-based test for the diagnosis of unusual cases of UC in children.