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Perturbations of Circulating miRNAs in Irritable Bowel Syndrome Detected Using a Multiplexed High-throughput Gene Expression Platform
Published on: November 30, 2016
Use of serum biomarkers in a diagnostic test for irritable bowel syndrome
1Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Background:
Currently, no single serum biomarker can reliably differentiate irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) from other functional gastrointestinal disorders or organic diseases of the gastrointestinal tract.
Aim:
To develop and validate a diagnostic test using serum biomarkers to detect IBS.
Methods:
Ten serum biomarkers were selected from a potential panel of 140 for their ability to differentiate IBS from non-IBS disease in blood samples from patients with IBS, other gastrointestinal disorders and healthy volunteers. A predictive modelling tool was developed to assess patterns and relationships among the 10 serum biomarkers that best differentiated IBS patients from healthy controls and patients with non-IBS gastrointestinal disease. This model was tested in a different cohort of patients and healthy controls (n = 516) to determine the predictive accuracy of differentiating IBS from non-IBS.
Results:
The sensitivity and specificity of the 10-biomarker algorithm for differentiating IBS from non-IBS was 50% and 88% respectively. The positive predictive value was 81%, and the negative predictive value was 64% at 50% IBS prevalence in the validation cohort. Overall accuracy was 70%.
Conclusions:
Assessing serum biomarker patterns can differentiate IBS from non-IBS with reasonable sensitivity and specificity. Assessing serum biomarkers in an overall diagnostic strategy may allow earlier diagnosis and treatment for patients with IBS.
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