Relationship between serum calprotectin, platelets, neutrophils and albumin in Behçet’s disease activity assessment

Abstract

Background
Behçet’s disease (BD) is a multisystem inflammatory disorder. Accurate assessment of disease activity is essential for disease control. Validated clinical methods that focus on organ involvement are the main tools used to measure BD disease activity. Complete blood count and the ratios between blood elements have been used to measure inflammation; this approach appears to be a simple and cost-effective laboratory. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate serum calprotectin/albumin ratio, C-reactive protein/ albumin ratio (CAR), platelet/albumin ratio (PAR), and neutrophil/albumin ratio (NAR) as indicators of activity and severity of BD.


Methods
Thirty patients of BD and thirty age-and sex matched controls participated in the study. BD Current Activity Form was used to record activity. Disease severity assessment was performed using Krause’s BD clinical severity rating. Serum Calprotectin, albumin, and C-reactive protein levels were measured in blood samples obtained from patients and controls.


Results
Nine females and 21 males BD patients were involved in this study with a mean age of 41.13 ± 5.82 years and a mean disease duration of 6.77 ± 3.16 years. The control group was thirty healthy adults of matched age (41.07 ± 5.9 years) (p-value = 0.965). A significant increase was noticed in means ± standard deviation of CAR, NAR, PAR, and Calprotectin/albumin ratio in BD patients (2.668 ± 2.287, 1357.4 ± 215.2, 76318.73 ± 16931, 0.22 ± 0.041) respectively, compared to the control group (0.632 ± 0.277, 1103.4 ± 208.1, 66545.37 ± 13598.98, 0.166 ± 0.041) respectively (P-value < 0.05). Correlation analysis showed positive correlation between all previously mentioned ratios and age, disease duration, ESR, CRP, Krause’s BD clinical severity score, and Behçet’s Disease Current Activity Form (P-value < 0.05). Both CAR and NAR were negatively correlated with disease duration.


Conclusion
CAR, NAR, PAR, and the calprotectin/albumin ratio were significantly elevated in BD and correlated with disease activity, indicating their potential as supportive biomarkers for assessing inflammatory activity.