• S100A12
• inflammatory bowel disease
• Crohn's disease
• ulcerative colitis
• marker
• disease activity

We read with interest the work by Foell et al in which the authors report increased serum levels of the protein S100A12, a marker of neutrophil activation, in patients with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis in comparison with healthy controls.1 They also demonstrated a correlation between S100A12 in the serum and disease activity as well as a prompt decrease of S100A12 levels in response to infliximab therapy. More recently, the same group showed that faecal S100A12 had even superior sensitivity and specificity than faecal calprotectin in distinguishing active inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) from healthy controls.2 All together, these findings make S100A12 a promising biomarker in IBD.

As both studies included only few patients, we wanted to further investigate the accuracy of serum S100A12 in a larger cohort of patients and controls. In brief, S100A12 was determined in …