Author(s)

Kaoru Sakamoto, Tatsuo Kanda, Takeo Bamba, Hiroyuki Funaoka, Shin-ichi Kosugi, Kazuhito Yajima, Takashi Ishikawa

Division of Digestive and General Surgery, Niigata University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Niigata, Japan.
DS Pharma Biomedical Co., Ltd., Osaka, Japan.

Purpose: The aims of this pilot study were to reveal the biological characteristics of serum I-FABP and explore its clinical utility as a biomarker in patients with small bowel obstruction (SBO). Methods: Serum I-FABP levels were measured in 37 consecutive patients with SBO between 2007 and 2008. Serum I-FABP levels were compared between ischemia (n = 10) and non-ischemia (n = 27) groups. Serum I-FABP levels were longitudinally analyzed in 21 patients who showed high (>2.0 ng/ml) serum I-FABP levels. The relationship between serum I-FABP level and length of damaged bowel was also analyzed. Results: Median serum I-FABP levels were 9.2 ng/ml in the ischemia group and 1.9 ng/ml in the non-ischemia group (p < 0.0001). The elevated I-FABP levels rapidly decreased after therapeutic intervention and normalized on the third day in all patients. Linear regression analysis revealed a positive correlation between I-FABP levels and lengths of surgically excised bowels (y = 2.527x － 7.660, r = 0.604, p = 0.0018). By setting the cutoff level at 7.2 ng/ml, the diagnostic ability of serum I-FABP was 70.0% in terms of sensitivity, 92.6% in terms of specificity, and 86.5% in terms of accuracy. Conclusion: Serum I-FABP sensitively reflects bowel damage in SBO patients and seems to be a potential biomarker for detecting small-bowel ischemia.

Biomarker; I-FABP; Small Bowel Obstruction; Strangulation

K. Sakamoto, T. Kanda, T. Bamba, H. Funaoka, S. Kosugi, K. Yajima and T. Ishikawa, "Serum Intestinal Fatty Acid Binding Protein in Patients with Small Bowel Obstruction," Surgical Science, Vol. 4 No. 6, 2013, pp. 302-307. doi: 10.4236/ss.2013.46059.