Diagnostic Value of Fecal Calprotectin in Response to Mother’s Diet in Breast-Fed Infants with Cow’s Milk Allergy Colitis

Background: Food allergy is an abnormal immunologic reaction to food proteins. During infancy, allergic colitis presents with bloody stool of a healthy child. calprotectin is released into the intestinal lumen by macrophages and neutrophils and is a reliable and non-invasive biomarker for evaluating inflammation of the digestive system. Objectives: This study evaluated the changes of fecal calprotectin after modification of mother’s diet, on breastfed infants with food allergy. Methods: This study was conducted on 29 infants less than one year old with allergic colitis, referred to the Besat hospital of Sanandaj (Iran) from 2013 to 2014. All infants were breast-fed. The fecal calprotectin levels were measured on admission; two and six weeks after starting hypo-allergenic diet for mothers and its levels were correlated with clinical findings. Results: With the onset of maternal hypoallergenic diet, clinical symptoms showed a statistically significant reduction (P < 0.05). The fecal calprotectin levels decreased during the study. Despite the declining trend of the fecal calprotectin levels, there was no statistical correlation between clinical and laboratory findings (P = 0.741 and P = 0.284). Conclusions: This study showed that changes on fecal calprotectin levels are not a good indicator for assessment of clinical improvement in food allergy. There was no statistically significant difference between the fecal calprotectin levels on admission, two weeks and six weeks after the intervention.