title: Fecal Calprotectin: Diagnostic Accuracy of the Immunochromatographic CalFast Assay in a Pediatric Population.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Fecal calprotectin is a noninvasive marker for bowel diseases and it is high valuable to follow disease activity in Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). In this study, we evaluated the diagnostic performance of the recently introduced immunochromatographic assay CalFast in comparison to the well-known ELISA tests for calprotectin assay to obtain a rapid diagnosis of bowel inflammation in pediatric patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  CalFast was tested in parallel to the classic ELISA tests CalPrest and PhiCal (gold standards for the calprotectin determination) on 148 fecal samples from pediatric subjects including 104 healthy subjects, 29 with CD, and 15 with UC.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In this study, the sensitivity and specificity of CalFast, CalPrest, and PhiCal were 86.4%, 88.6%, and 93.2% and 86.6%, 74%, and 64.4%, respectively. The area under the curve, obtained from receiver operating characteristic analysis, indicated the lack of significant difference among all the kits used.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The immunochromatographic assay demonstrated good diagnostic predictive values, comparable to those of the ELISA methods, and may represent a valid alternative in order to save operators' time. The test, in fact, has a short turnaround time and does not need a specific ELISA instrumentation.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Maternal and Child Health-IRCCS "Burlo Garofolo", Trieste, Italy.
authors.forename: Oriano
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Radillo
authors.affiliation: Institute for Maternal and Child Health-IRCCS "Burlo Garofolo", Trieste, Italy. lorella.pascolo@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Lorella
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pascolo
authors.affiliation: Institute for Maternal and Child Health-IRCCS "Burlo Garofolo", Trieste, Italy.
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Martelossi
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical, Surgical and Health Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dal Bo
authors.affiliation: Institute for Maternal and Child Health-IRCCS "Burlo Garofolo", Trieste, Italy.|Department of Medical, Surgical and Health Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ventura
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002846:Chromatography, Affinity / Q000379:methods*; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay / Q000379:methods; D005243:Feces / Q000737:chemistry*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D015212:Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*; D039841:Leukocyte L1 Antigen Complex / Q000032:analysis*; D008297:Male; D012372:ROC Curve
chemical_list: D039841:Leukocyte L1 Antigen Complex
keywords: children; fecal marker; gastrointestinal diseases; immunochromatographic assay; immunoenzymatic assay