[Fecal lactoferrin in identifying and management of inflammatory bowel disease].

Inflammatory bowel disease is a group of chronic inflammatory conditions of gastrointestinal tract, including ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. Diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease is based on clinical symptoms, lower and/or upper gastrointestinal tract endoscopy with biopsies and histological results. These procedures are invasive for patients and highly expensive. Thus, efforts are underway to establish new noninvasive tests appropriate to diagnosis and management of inflammatory bowel disease. Commonly used, blood markers of inflammation or scales of inflammatory bowel disease activity has been demonstrated to be insufficient. Recently, there has been increasing interest in identifying biomarkers, i.e. calprotectin, lactoferrin, mieloperoxidasis or S100A12 protein in faeces. These proteins are produced by neutrophil granulocytes and clearly reflect inflammation directly in bowel. It should be highlighted that these tests are noninvasive and may be perform repetitiously.