FOCUS: The Future of Fecal Calprotectin Utility Study for the Diagnosis and Management of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)

University of British Columbia289 enrolled

Overview

Hypothesis: Fecal Calprotectin will be useful in guiding the diagnosis and management of patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Fecal Calprotectin can be utilized as an alternative to colonoscopy in the management of patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Objectives: By means of a survey from the ordering physician we would assess: Primary Endpoint 1\. The Percentage of time that the Fecal Calprotectin result caused the physician to change the management of a patient. Secondary Endpoints 1. To determine if the Fecal Calprotectin result influenced the number of endoscopies performed 2. To correlate how well the Fecal Calprotectin correlates with Endoscopic findings when endoscopy was performed. 3. To assess the correlation between the Fecal Calprotectin level and symptoms as measured by the Harvey Bradshaw index or the partial Mayo Score (or full Mayo Score depending if endoscopy was performed).

Patients will be identified as eligible by the attending Gastroenterologist during the course of a usual consultation. Patients will be referred to the research nurse in the doctor's office for further information regarding the study and informed consent will be obtained by the research nurse. Upon enrollment, the physician or the research nurse will complete an online requisition form with a unique code which will provide the baseline data. The patient will be provided with the Easy Sampler™ collection kit and instructions on the use of this kit and location on where to send the specimen. The nurse will then send an email to the research nurse in the originating physician's office with the result of the calprotectin assay. The research nurse will review the result with the physician. After physician review, either the physician or the research nurse will then complete a follow up survey online. After completion of the assays and surveys, the data will be tabulated electronically from the online website and analyzed by the PI and/or co-investigators.

Study Type

OBSERVATIONAL

Enrollment

289

Conditions

Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 19 Years

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * Subjects must be at least 19 years of age or older, they must be able to read and provide written consent in English. Subjects will have gastrointestinal symptoms or be known to have Inflammatory Bowel Disease whereby the clinician feels that obtaining Fecal Calprotectin may be useful in the care of the patient. Patients must be able to collect a feces sample and return it for analysis within 3 days Exclusion Criteria: * Known Ischemic colitis, infectious enteritis or colitis, known colorectal cancer, history of extensive bowel resection, ostomy, current daily use of NSAIDs (aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen, etc) or the inability to collect sample and return it within 3 days

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Percentage of time that Fecal Calprotectin result caused the physician to change the management of a patient.

The utility of the test will be assessed by comparing the proportion of time the test altered management for each of the two groups (IBD present vs. IBD absent). The groups will be compared using paired t-tests and McNemar's test as appropriate. Multivariate analysis will be used to assess the impact of the baseline variables on the test utility.

Time frame: one year