Fecal calprotectin, how accurate?

hi all , could i pick ur brains, i am currently in a bad flare as i have come off all medication and useful diet to have a colonscopy , i have also just done a fecal calprotecting test which came back positive ? anyone know much about these and if false postive appear ? x getting ready with info for my 'its ibs consultant ' !! x

I am in the exact same situation as you so looking out for some responses here.

I think false positives can occur if you've had aspirin or ibuprofen before the test.

If you look in our wiki forum or click on fecal calprotectin highlighted in this post it will take you to all the information about this test, sources for the information as well as threads that have mention of the test.

Actually I am in the same situation. Test came positive 2 months ago so I had to to colonoscopy. The biopsy showed minor inflammation but nothing bad in the colon itself. After this my GI decided to send me for another calprotein test. I will have the results this Friday however she did say something about false positive and that this test is not that accurate. She said that mainly they use this test in order to decide if someone needs colonoscopy or not, but the test itself doesn't help much in distinguishing IBS vs IBD, although studies have shown that a positive caltrotein most of the times is related to IBD.
You can read more about this test:
http://www.bmj.com/content/341/bmj.c3369
http://www.clinchem.org/content/49/6/861.short
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12765980
http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org/content/98/6/435.full

Good luck and let us know!

My son is already diagnosed with CD so the calprotectin test is used to check inflammation levels. So I wouldn't know about its accuracy in distinguishing between ibs and ibd.

This is really interesting, but confusing too. I had a fecal lactoferrin test done aver a year and half ago by my natuopath doctor at that time. Mine came back elevated. At the time, I did not have much intestinal issues. When I asked my gasrto doc a few months back if we should check it, he said no, that it is not that useful in terms of dx anything. His answer was that other things can raise it. But everywhere I read or google, it says that the only things that can raise these markers are infection, IBD, or sometimes chronic use of NSAIDS. I do not have infection as I was tested through a stool culture, and I do not take NSAIDS. So I am thinking I may have some sort inflammation going on. Now the question is, can you get inflammation in the GI tract from other things besides the ones I mentioned???? I just do not get it. I was thinking of having my regular doctor order me the calprotectin test just to see, but not sure how reliable it is....

So got my Calrp results few days ago and they were negative. Two months ago it was positive and now negative...confusing .

That is crazy. I just sent mine calprotectin test in over a week ago. I should get the results on Saturday when I see my regular doctor. That is nuts that yours was positive and then negative in such a short time span. Maybe it is not that reliable of a test, I dont know...

When you say positive and negative do you know exactly what you level was? For instance, the normal range for a non ibd person is <50, I've read on the forum for IBD patients the GIs like below 200(not sure if that is from a study or anecdotal) my son's level last calprotectin test was 1200.