Tumour necrosis factor alpha in stools as a marker in colonic diseases

ABSTRACT

This study was conducted on 40 patients with different inflammatory bowel diseases depending on the clinical examination, colonoscopic findings and histopthological reports. We aimed at measuring local stool TNF alpha and serum CRP in an attempt to explore their usefulness in assessing inflammatory bowel diseases. The patients were 10 colonic schistosomal patients [CS], 10 active ulcerative colitis [AUC], 10 cancer colon [CC], 5 irritable bowel syndrome [IBS], 3 inactive ulcerative colitis [lUC] and 2 with colonic diverticulosis [DV]. It was found that serum CRP in the different groups of patients were insignificantly different either from the control group or the IBS group. The TNF alpha level in the stool of patients with schistosomal polyposis, AUC and CC were significantly higher than the control group [P< 0.001]. From this data we concluded that serum CRP is of little value in the evaluation of inflammatory bowel diseases, while local TNF alpha may monitor disease activity and even low values exclude active inflammatory bowel diseases, cancer colon and polyposis of any aetiology