Clostridoides difficile Infection Severity Assessment by Fecal Calprotectin: A Pilot Study

Clostridoides difficile infection (CDI) is the leading cause of antibiotic related diarrhea therapy and may associate high morbidity and mortality. Providing a potential biomarker to assess disease severity may help physicians in choosing the right treatment. Methods. This was a prospective, single-centre cohort study which included patients diagnosed with CDI which were assessed by fecal calprotectin (FC). Results. Patients included had a mean of 69.29 years of age, 54.23% of male gender. Patients diagnosed with mild CDI had a mean ATLAS score of 3.39 (±1.24), statistically lower (p<0.001) than patients with severe CDI who had a mean ATLAS score of 7.33 (±0.77). Fecal calprotectin concentrations were significantly higher (p<0.001) in the severe CDI patients (615.14μg/g; IQR, 403.62-784.4μg/g) than in the mild CDI patients (195.42μg/g; IQR, 131.12-298.59μg/g). We suggest a cut-off of 290.09μg/g for the predictive marker of fecal calprotectin, which permitted to identify patients with severe and mild CDI, having 100% sensitivity and 76% specificity. Conclusions. Our findings point out the potential that FC might have, as a biomarker for disease severity. However, future multicentre studies and in larger cohort need to validate the results.