Analytical characteristics of faecal and serum calprotectin or calprotectin assay: What clinical interest?

Calprotectin is a calcium binding protein expressed at the inflammatory site by neutrophils and monocytes to activate the innate immune system. Thanks to this unique characteristic, it is a good indicator of local inflammation in chronic inflammatory rheumatism.

All of the data highlight the key role that calprotectin plays in the inflammatory process in several inflammatory rheumatism. The value of serum and faecal calprotectin assays has been widely studied in recent years, in particular in rheumatoid arthritis, spondyloarthritis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis and vasculitis associated with ANCA but also for chronic inflammatory bowel disease. calprotectin has been identified as a powerful biomarker that allows the evaluation and monitoring of the activity of disease but also to predict structural evolution or response to treatment. Calprotectin is also a predictive biomarker of risk relapse. In this review, we discuss the value of calprotectin in chronic inflammatory affections as a diagnostic, potency or prognostic biomarker.