Clinical Relevance of Faecal Calprotectin Level in Infantile Colic: A Cross-sectional Survey

There is limited knowledge on the potential applicability of fecal calprotectin (f-CP) as an inflammatory screening parameter in infantile colic (IC). This study aimed to evaluate f-CP in neonates with IC as a useful diagnostic indicator regarding this condition. The present study was conducted on 100 cases, including 50 newborns with IC and 50 non-colicky neonates. The diagnosis of IC was fulfilled by the Wessel Criteria. The level of f-CP was determined by a specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kit (Calprotectin ELISA, EuroImmun, Germany). The statistical analysis was performed in SPSS software (version 19). Out of 100 neonates, 57 cases were male and 43 subjects were female. The age spectrum ranged from 19-90 days (40.4±15.9). Colicky newborns were slightly younger (P=0.06) with higher birth weight compared to the infants without colic (P<0.0001). The level of f-CP was significantly higher in colicky neonates (113.7±98.2 µg/g) than non-colicky cases (71.4±45.5 µg/g) (P=0.007). Overall, 37%, 30%, 26%, and 7% of the newborns showed f-CP levels<50, 50-100, 100-200, and >200 µg/g, respectively. There was a significant difference regarding the distribution of these f-CP categories between neonates with IC and the cases without IC (P=0.02). There were no significant correlations between the f-CP and newborn age, pregnancy age, present or birth weights, and number of pregnancies. Receiver operating characteristic analysis rendered an area under the curve of 0.642 (95% CI: 0.534-0.748) (P=0.01). At the cut-off value of 74 µg/g, f-CP showed sensitivity of 60% and specificity of 59% for the detection of IC. The results of this study revealed that the f-CP might be useful in the diagnosis of the IC