Introduction
Bile acid malabsorption (BAM) is responsible for 30% of cases of diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-D) or functional diarrhea and 63.5% of cases of diarrhea following cholecystectomy. 75SeHCAT is the gold standard diagnostic method but is unavailable in Mexico. Alternatively, primary bile acid (PBA) and total bile acid (TBA) determination in 48 h stools and 7αC4 measurement have been proposed as screening tests.
Objective
Our aim was to evaluate the experience with PBAs and/or TBAs and to determine whether 7αC4 is a good screening biomarker for BAM in clinical practice.
Material and methods
An ambispective study of patients with chronic diarrhea was conducted. BAM was considered present with 7αC4 > 55 ng/mL (cost $420.00 USD), PBAs ≥ 9.8%, TBAs > 2,337 μmol/48 h, or TBAs > 1,000 μmol/48 h + PBAs > 4% (TBAs + PBAs) ($405.00 USD). However, those tests must be shipped to the US for their analysis (total cost $825.00 USD). Data were compared using the chi-square test and Student's t test, and Spearman's Rho correlations were calculated.
Results
We analyzed 48 patients with 7αC4 (age: 58.4 ± 16.9, women: 54.2%). BAM was confirmed by 7αC4 in 12.5%, by PBAs in 38.9%; by TBAs in 5.5%, and by TBAs + PBAs in 16.7%. We found elevated 7αC4 in patients with high or normal PBA/TBA levels (correlation with TBAs: 0.542, P = .020; PBAs: −0.127, P = .605; TBAs + PBAs: −0.200, P = .426). Lastly, BAM identified by 7αC4 was more frequent in patients with previous cholecystectomy (22.7%) vs. those without (3.8%).
Conclusions
Our study confirms that 7αC4 correlates well with TBAs and is a good biomarker for BAM screening because it can be elevated, despite normal PBA/TBA levels. Additionally, it represents a 49% cost savings in BAM investigation.
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