Biomarkers for chronic inflammatory bowel diseases including blood and stool tests

The diagnosis and therapy of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) is an everyday clinical challenge. Therapeutic and diagnostic decisions are usually based on a combination of endoscopy, radiology, histopathology, clinical symptoms and laboratory test parameters. Biomarkers are easily and rapidly accessible, without being invasive and can therefore be easily used in everyday practice. Markers of inflammation, such as acute phase reactants or the fecal markers calprotectin and lactoferrin can be used for monitoring disease activity or response to therapy. Serological markers are mainly used to establish a diagnosis of IBD and can help to distinguish ulcerative colitis from Crohn's disease. Other laboratory markers can be helpful to characterize extraintestinal manifestations, secondary deficiency symptoms or adverse drug reactions. However, clinical decisions are always based on a compendium of clinical information and never on laboratory markers alone. Nevertheless, this article will give an overview about the most common and best validated bio-markers for IBD.