Composição corporal e ângulo de fase em pacientes com doença inflamatória intestinal e sua associação com calprotectina fecal

Abstract

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are marked by a chronic inflammatory process, which negatively affect the patient's quality of life. Fecal calprotectin (FC) has been used in clinical practice to assess the inflammatory activity of these patients as an alternative to performing colonoscopy. Changes in body composition are frequent in patients with IBD, both in the active phase of the disease, where a reduction in body weight is identified, and in the asymptomatic phase, where an increase in overweight and obesity is identified. In this context, the present study investigated the association between body composition, phase angle and fecal calprotectin levels in patients with inflammatory bowel disease treated at the coloproctology outpatient clinic of Hospital Professor Alberto Antunes (HUPAA), Maceió-AL. Cross-sectional study, with patients diagnosed with CD or UC. Sociodemographic and clinical data were collected; Bioimpedance was performed to determine fat mass (FM), fat-free mass (FFM) and phase angle (PhA), considering low values below 6º; and determination of FC levels in stool samples, in which values greater than 200µg/g represented the disease in activity. Data were tabulated in the Microsoft Office Excel®️ 2010 program, analyzed in the Statistical Package for Social Science SPSS® version 21.0 software. After determining the normal/non-normal distribution of the data (Shapiro-wilk test), static tests were applied to compare the mean/median and Spearman's correlation was performed. Significance was considered when p < 0.05 and correlations were defined as weak (r0.3 and 0.7). The sample consisted of 39 patients, with a mean age of 46.18 ± 13.75 years (31 adults and 8 elderly), 69.2% (n=27) were female. Although 84.6% (n=33) and 58.9% (n=23) of those evaluated presented adequate PhA and FFM, respectively, a high prevalence of excess fat mass was observed (84.6%; n= 33). IBD was active in 61.5% (n=24) of the individuals evaluated. No association or correlation was observed between PhA, FFM and FM and disease activity, identified by the levels of FC. Studies with greater recruitment of participants are recommended, in addition to the investigation of variables such as the type of treatment in order to identify possible associations.