Normal values for calprotectin in stool samples of infants from the population-based longitudinal born into life study

Abstract

Faecal calprotectin is a protein used as a diagnostic marker for inflammatory bowel diseases. We determined upper limits for normal calprotectin values for neonatal, 6, 12 and 24 months old children using a turbidimetric immunoassay in a cohort of Swedish children. The advantage of the method is that opposite to previously used enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method, it enables measuring single samples, and thus, shortens the analysis time significantly. There were 72 samples (41.7% female) collected neonatally, 63 samples (34.9% female) at 6 months, 60 samples (40.0% female) at 12 months and 51 samples (43.1% female) at 24 months. The upper limits for normal values were 233, 615, 136 and 57 µg mg⁻¹ for infants aged 0, 6, 12 and 24 months, respectively.

Keywords:

• Calprotectin
• turbidimetric immunoassay
• normal values
• inflammatory bowel disease
• abdominal pain

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Eurostar under Grant E!7991 Faecal-Calprotectin; the Swedish Research Council under Grants 2015–03477, 2010–15062–79050–11, 2015–02434; the Swedish Initiative for Research on Microdata in the Social And Medical Sciences (SIMSAM) framework under Grant 340–2013–5867; the Stockholm County Council ALF-projects; the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation; and the Strategic Research Program in Epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet.