Heat shock protein family A member 6 combined with clinical characteristics for the differential diagnosis of intestinal Behçet's disease.

Objective: To investigate the role of heat shock protein family A member 6 (HSPA6) expression alone and in combination with clinical characteristics in distinguishing intestinal Behçet's disease (BD) from Crohn's disease (CD) with ileocolonic involvement.

Methods: Patients diagnosed with either intestinal BD or CD were enrolled. Their clinical characteristics, disease activity, laboratory test results including hypersensitive C-reactive protein (hsCRP) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), endoscopic, pathological and radiological features were retrospectively analyzed. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was applied to measure serum HSPA6 levels.

Results: Among intestinal BD patients, abdominal pain and diarrhea were the leading gastrointestinal symptoms. Submucosal lymphocyte infiltration was the most common pathological finding. Computed tomography enterography features involved number of segments of less than 4 and bowel wall thickening. Independent factors were round/ellipsoid intestinal ulcer (P < 0.001), number of ulcers ≤5 (P = 0.050), elevated ulcer margin (P = 0.019), absence of aphthous ulcer (P = 0.005), bowel wall thickening >13 mm (P < 0.001) and serum HSPA6 level >3.725 ng/mL (P = 0.008) for the differential diagnosis between intestinal BD and CD. Serum HSPA6 expression was significantly elevated in intestinal BD (0.72 ± 0.39 ng/mL) compared with CD (0.50 ± 0.24 ng/mL, P = 0.000) and healthy controls (0.38 ± 0.37 ng/mL, P = 0.000).

Conclusion: HSPA6 in combination with clinical, radiological and pathological characteristics is useful in distinguishing intestinal BD from CD with ileocolonic involvement.