The increase in the incidence of non-specific inflammatory bowel disease (IBD): ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) makes the research of finding new biochemical markers, which were characterized by a high sensitivity and specificity for an objective assessment of severity of the inflammatory process and the effectiveness of treatment of patients. The aim of this study was to estimate the usefulness of neopterin in serum in assessing the disease activity in comparison to other markers of inflammation such as C-reactive protein (CRP) and TNF-alpha in patients with exacerbation of IBD and healthy volunteers. The study included 32 patients with UC and 31 with CD. The control group consisted of 30 healthy volunteers matched for age and gender. Disease activity in patients with UC was assessed based on a point system Mayo. In patients with CD disease activity was calculated based on the CDAI (Crohn's Disease Activity Index). Serum concentrations of neopterin, CRP and TNF-alpha were measured. For determination of CRP were used immunochemical nephelometric method. TNF-alpha and neopterin was measured by ELISA.
Results: In patients with UC and CD increased concentration of serum neopterin was significantly higher compared to the control group (p < 0.005). We observed a positive correlation between increased concentrations of neopterin in serum and increased levels of TNF-alpha and CRP, increasing the number of leukocytes and platelets count and the degree of disease activity in patients with both UC and CD, but was no statistically significant differences between the two groups of patients.
Conclusions: Measurement of neopterin concentration in serum may be a useful marker to assess disease activity in patients with IBD.