Around 2 million people in Europe suffer from IBD. Morbus Crohn and Colitis ulcerosa are incurable serious chronic diseases of the intestinal tract. The symptoms are distressing, embarrassing and even debilitating. Once symptoms appear, they resemble those of other conditions of functional origin (IBS), which make it very difficult for doctors to correctly diagnose. IBS is often confused with ulcerative colitis and Crohn. The inflammation typical of these diseases is not present in IBS. It is assumed that IBS affects over 30 million people in Europe and results in over 2 million yearly visits to physicians. Twenty to 30 percent of all visits to gastro enterologists are due to symptoms of IBS. Calprotectin is a clear gatekeeper marker for the physicians timely decision making on weather to send the patients to colonoscopy or to treat them for IBS symptoms.

IBD Disease Monitoring
The clinical course of most patients with IBD is marked by periods of remission with intermittent relapses characterized by increased intestinal inflammation. Numerous published studies, among others by Tibble et al., studied the levels of calprotectin in patients during the course of the disease. The results show that calprotectin is a good predictor of relapse in patients with IBD, thus giving the clinicians an effective tool to adapt the patients treatment accordingly thus to ease the relapse intensity.

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