Novel anti-carbohydrate autoantibodies in patients with inflammatory bowel disease: are they useful for clinical practice?

The objective of this study was to test the diagnostic accuracy of novel anti-carbohydrate assays in patients with inflammatory bowel disease, namely in Crohn's disease. These carbohydrate assays are based on oligosaccharide chitobioside carbohydrate - anti-chitobioside carbohydrate antibodies (ACCA), laminaribioside carbohydrate anti-laminaribioside carbohydrate antibodies (ALCA), and mannobioside carbohydrate - anti-mannobioside carbohydrate antibodies (AMCA). We compared these assays with the anti-Saccharomyces cerevisiae antibodies (ASCA) assay. The results of this study suggest that ASCA are still the best serological marker for Crohn's disease. Further studies are required to explore the clinical utility of ACCA, ALCA and AMCA.