Fecal Calprotectin Concentrations in Cats with Chronic Enteropathies.

Diagnosis of feline chronic inflammatory enteropathies (CIE) and the differentiation from small cell intestinal lymphoma (SCL) can be challenging. Intestinally expressed calprotectin (S100A8/A9 protein complex) appears to be part of the complex pathogenesis of feline chronic enteropathies (FCE). Fecal calprotectin is a non-invasive biomarker for intestinal inflammation in humans and dogs but has not yet been evaluated in cats.

Verification of the fCAL turbo immunoturbidimetric assay for measurement of the fecal calprotectin concentration in dogs and cats.

The concentration of calprotectin in feces (fCal) is a clinically useful marker of chronic gastrointestinal inflammation in humans and dogs. No commercial assay is widely available to measure fCal in small animal medicine, to date. Thus, we verified the immunoturbidimetric fCAL turbo assay (Bühlmann) of fCal for canine and feline fecal extracts by determining linearity, spiking and recovery, and intra-assay and inter-assay variability.