Investigating the Correlation between Fecal Calprotectin and Gastrointestinal Involvement in Systemic Sclerosis...

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a systemic autoimmune disease that is associated with gastrointestinal involvement. Calprotectin, as a heterodimer protein (S100A8/S100A9), is a good marker for active inflammatory bowel disease; this marker is a non-invasive and reproducible test. It is believed that fecal calprotectin (FC) increases in several inflammatory diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and SSc. In this study, we tried to measure the correlation between gastrointestinal involvement and FC level in SSc patients.

This study is cross-sectional; 31 SSC patients were evaluated using the UCLA.SCTC 2.0, and then they were referred to the laboratory to assess their blood malnutrition biomarkers and stool sample to check FC. The quantitative data were analyzed using the T-test and the qualitative data using Chi-Square test.

The mean (SD) was 50.8 (4.2) for age and 15.0 (8.3) for ESR. Assessing the malnutrition markers showed that all assessed factors were in the normal range; the range of FC was higher than that of normal people (10-60). There was no correlation between FC and malnutrition markers, but a significant relationship between FC level and gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhea (74%), Constipation (74%), and bloating and abdominal distension (87 %) was detected.

due to the high prevalence of gastrointestinal involvement in SSc patients, diagnosing gastrointestinal symptoms is an important step in ensuring patients' health. This study suggests that higher fecal calprotectin is an alarm for gastrointestinal involvement.