fecal calprotectin value 68 mg/ day

Copied verbatim from the IBDrelief website :

What does having a raised faecal calprotectin level mean?

Having a raised calprotectin level generally means you have active inflammation in your body. This is generally associated with inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis. The higher the level of faecal calprotectin the more inflammation present in your intestines.

If you have IBD but your calprotectin levels come back within the ‘normal’ range then your doctor would generally consider you to be in clinical remission.

What are considered normal levels of faecal calprotectin?

Most people have some level of calprotectin in their body but when these levels go above what is considered to be ‘normal’ IBD may be suspected. Some people with IBS or other conditions may have levels of calprotectin that are slightly raised above the ‘normal’ level.

The results of a calprotectin test are generally given as a single number. This number is then compared against the cut-off value for the test. If the number is below the cut-off value it is considered a negative, or normal, test. If it is above the cut-off value it is considered a positive, or abnormal, test. In some cases an indeterminate result may be given if the result number is near to the cut-off value and a positive or negative test cannot be confirmed. In these cases the faecal calprotectin test may be repeated at a later date or other diagnostic tests may be carried out.

There are many different manufacturers of calprotectin tests and the cut-off value differs from test to test. The most common cut-off value recommended by the test manufacturers is 50 micrograms/g.

Some people with IBD report having faecal calprotectin levels several hundred, or even thousand, above the cut-off level.

68 is slightly high, but probably not high enough for any doctor to take seriously. By itself, it's rather meaningless: you need to establish a baseline, which means building up a record of results over time. During a flare-up your FC might rise into the hundreds or even thousands and in remission fall to under 100. Ideally you'd want it to be under 50 but if you do know that your FC rises dramatically in flare ups, then 68 is a decent result all the same. On the other hand if your natural 'low' is 10 then 68 is comparatively a rather high result.

I personally take the super high results (i.e. scores in the thousands) with a slight pinch of salt. They obviously indicate a lot of inflammation, but whether 5000 is worse than 500, I don't think anyone really knows yet.