Gentian looks forward to attending the 31st annual PReS Meeting, taking place September 11-14. 2024, in Gothenburg, Sweden. At this event, Gentian will showcase its advancements in calprotectin testing, highlighting its importance in paediatric rheumatology.
“Many rheumatologists find that circulating calprotectin provides valuable insights into disease status, guiding optimal patient care.”
Elin Godager, Global Product Manager
Calprotectin is an acute-phase protein, a heterodimer of S100A8 and S100A9, highly expressed by neutrophils. During inflammation, neutrophils migrate to the inflammatory site and secrete large amounts of calprotectin acting as a soluble proinflammatory mediator. Once released, calprotectin can enter the systemic circulation, where its levels in serum and plasma serve as a direct indicator of joint inflammatory activity.1-4
Circulating calprotectin has proven a great value in assessment and prediction of treatment response, remission and flares in JIA (Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis), the most common chronic rheumatic disease in children. Studies have shown that calprotectin not only correlates with clinical disease activity scores, ultrasound findings, and other inflammatory biomarkers but can even outperform them in assessing disease activity.
Since rheumatic patients are often treated with a wide range of medications, some of which indirectly lower downstream levels of C-reactive protein (CRP). Calprotectin can therefore be a useful biomarker when CRP is normal or difficult to interpret, reported in RA patients treated with therapies that suppress interleukin-6 (IL-6) or tumour necrosis factor (TNF),5-8 as well as methotrexate (MTX).9,10
“Incorporating calprotectin testing into clinical routine provides rheumatologists with confident information of the patients disease activity at crucial decision points during treatment and remission.”
Dr. Paula Lindner, Scientific Product Manager
Studies that have shown high calprotectin concentrations at baseline are strong predictors of a positive response to various treatments including MTX and biological DMARDs (Disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs). Notably, these patient groups often do not differ in any other clinical or laboratory parameters.11-14 At discontinuing treatment, low calprotectin levels in patients with stable, clinically inactive remission are linked to a reduced risk of future flares, while high calprotectin levels indicate a risk of flares.14-17 Therefore, in routine clinical practice, high calprotectin levels may indicate the need to continue treatment, even in clinically inactive disease.
The highest calprotectin levels are recorded in Still’s disease, systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (sJIA), where they can support the challenging differentiation with bacterial infection in febrile children.18 Consequently, the most recent EULAR/PReS recommendations on the management of Still’s disease (presented at EULAR 2024) include calprotectin as a tool to strongly support the diagnosis of Still’s disease.19
GCAL® is a Particle-Enhanced Turbidimetric Immunoassay (PETIA) rapidly performed in only 10 minutes. As open channel assay it is available on a wide range of clinical chemistry platforms.
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