Monitoring of Crohn's disease with blood C-reactive protein and faecal calprotectin
| Advantages | Drawbacks |
|---|---|
| ▸ Non-invasive ▸ Good acceptance ▸ Relatively low cost ▸ Can be repeated as a longitudinal monitoring tool ▸ May be combined to improve prediction ▸ Predictive value for – Disease relapse under or after medical therapy – Response to anti-TNF treatment – Mucosal healing | ▸ Subject to non-specific variations ▸ Stool marker not always well accepted by patients (faecal calprotectin) ▸ The correlation with mucosal healing and transmural healing is imperfect ▸ Predictive threshold values not fully established |
TNF, tumour necrosis factor.