Biological marker of the mucosal inflammation in children with skin symptoms of the food hypersensitivity

Abstract

Background. Food hypersensitivity (FH) remains actual medical problem. Aim of the work was to study the prevalence, correlation of fecal calprotectin (FC), biological marker of the mucosal inflammation, with age, sex, course of the skin symptoms of FH in children. Materials and methods. One hundred two patients (51 (50 %) boys, 51 (50 %) girls) with skin symptoms of FH were included into the study, mean age was 25.36 [12.00; 60.00] months. FC was detected by Calprotectin RAPIDTEST (Italy). Results. Calprotectin was detected in feces in 45 % of patients (n = 46), 13 % of them were children aged up to 1 year, 47.82 % — from 1 to 3 years. The number of children with positive FC test didn’t differ in different age groups (Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA test H (4, n = 102) = 4.45, p > 0.05). FC test was more often positive in boys, but statistically significant gender difference was detected only among children aged 1–3 years (c2 = 9.09, р 0.05) and sex (j = 0.006, p > 0.05), age of the first symptoms and duration of the disease (r = +0.06, p > 0.05 and r = +0.02, p < 0.05, respectively). Conclusions. 45 % of children with skin symptoms of FH have organic changes in the intestinal wall, which was proved by biological marker — FC. Such changes have no correlation with age, sex, age of the first symptoms and duration of the disease.

Keywords

• food hypersensitivity
• children
• mucosal barrier
• calprotectin
• mucosal inflammation