so how high was the calprotetcin?My son has Crohn's it was most severe in his small intestine at the ileo cecal valve but did have some inflammation in the colon. He was completely asymptomatic as far as pain and there was no disturbance in his bowel movements, normal once a day or every other day. This was not indicative of the active disease going on in his GI tract.
His blood work is not a good indicator of active inflammation but fecal calprotectin has been.
so how much calprotein would a normal person have do you know? should it be 0?His highest fecal calprotectin was 1700 so a definite flare. At one point it got down to 300 which would suggest simmering inflammation which was also verified by a colonoscopy and MRE done at the same time. Since his meds were unable to fully take care of the inflammation he had a resection.
He had no symptoms before the surgery but remission isn't determined by absence of symptoms since inflammation can still be doing damage with no symptoms present.
Exactly. That is the point of the test. To avoid and cut down on colonoscopies which are much more costly and very unpleasant for the patient.This test is a good first step tool. GIs will certainly want to investigate further if you have a result that falls out of the norm like 200 but if it comes back under 50 then the GI may not be apt to order further testing such as scopes or imaging.