Correlation of Circulating Cathelcidin Level and Inflammatory Bowel Disease Activity

Abstract Background Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs), which include Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), are a group of idiopathic, chronic and relapsing inflammatory disorders of the gastrointestinal tract, whose incidence and prevalence has been increasing in the last decade. Objective To correlate circulating cathelicidin levels with mucosal disease activity in patients with IBD. Patients and Methods This case control cross sectional study was conducted on 45 adult subjects referred to Gastrointestinal Endoscopy and Liver Unit, EL-Haram Hospital.40 of the patients had IBD, the other 40 were non IBD patients studied as case control. All subjects were submitted to complete medical history, physical examination, laboratory investigations, colonoscopic examination and cathelicidin serum level. Results Our results showed that there was no statistically significant difference between both studied groups regarding both age and sex distribution. In this study we found highly significant decrease in Hemoglobin level in cases group compared to control group (p value < 0.001). Also, there was significant increase in platelets level among cases group compared to control (p value < 0.05). Also, we found that serum albumin was decreased among IBD patients compared to control. Conclusion Serum Cathelicidin has shown significant increase in patients with IBD activity. Serum cathelicidin levels showed statistically significant reverse correlation with Partial Mayo Scores of severity in UC patients. Serum cathelicidin levels showed Non-statistically significant correlation with Harvey Bradshaw Indices of severity in CD patients. Co-evaluation of LL-37 and CRP levels was more accurate than CRP alone or LL-37 alone in the correlation with Mayo Endoscopic Score of UC patients.