М.А. KHANAFINA¹, А.А. KAMALOVA^1, 2, I.KH. VALEEVA¹

 ¹Kazan State Medical University, Kazan

²Children’s Republican Clinical Hospital, Kazan

Contact details:

Khanafina M.A, post-graduate student of the Department of Hospital Pediatrics

Address: 49 Butlerov St., 420012 Kazan, Russian Federation, tel.: +7-986-931-79-46, e-mail: marinaakhan@mail.ru

The search for highly sensitive and highly specific noninvasive markers of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is an important problem in pediatric practice. Antibodies to αvβ6 integrin are a promising diagnostic tool in the management of patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD).

The purpose — to determine the clinical diagnostic value of anti-αvβ6-IgG in children with newly diagnosed IBD.

Material and methods. The study included 52 children with newly diagnosed IBD (34 patients with UC and 18 children with CD). The control group was comparable by gender and age and included 21 apparently healthy children. Anti-αvβ6-IgG was determined using the competitive ELISA Kit (BlueGene Biotech CO., LTD., Shanghai, China) according to the manufacturer’s protocol.

Results. Anti-αvβ6-IgG titers were significantly higher in IBD patients compared to the control group with diagnostic sensitivity (Se) and specificity (Sp) of 100 and 86.5%, respectively, p < 0.001. Anti-αvβ6-IgG showed statistically significant differentiation of UC and CD with Se 55.6% and Sp 85.3%, p = 0.008. Anti-αvβ6-IgG values were reliably higher in children with more severe rectal bleeding and abdominal pain in UC, p < 0,001. The level of IgG antibodies to αvβ6 integrin correlated with the degree of endoscopic activity in both UC (p = 0.381, p = 0.004) and CD (r_xy = 0.595, p = 0.007), and with the histological activity in UC (p = 0.558. p < 0.001).

Conclusion. Anti-αvβ6-IgG is a promising serological biomarker with high diagnostic value for the detection of inflammatory bowel diseases, possessing high sensitivity and specificity in screening for IBD, high specificity in differentiating ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, as well as significant correlations with the clinical, endoscopic and histological activity in ulcerative colitis.

Key words: inflammatory bowel diseases, ulcerative colitis, integrin, anti-αvβ6-IgG.

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