Y. SCHALLBERGER¹, Y. STAIGER¹, P. WOBMANN¹, A. BURNENS¹, L. A. BESTMANN<sup>1

1</sup>Bioanalytica, St.Anna-Strasse 36, CH-6006 Lucerne, Switzerland

Calprotectin, an important marker to detect and monitor inflammatory processes in the gastrointestinal tract, has been well established during the last few years. As a consequence the amount of calprotectin determinations in the laboratory has increased rapidly. Calprotectin has to be extracted from faecal specimens. Due to the nature and inherent inhomogeneity of this specimen the work load in the laboratory increased over time and reduction of hands-on-time is needed by simplification and automation.
In our laboratory we evaluated the user-friendly CALEX® Cap Extraction device to speed up and streamline the cumbersome and labour-intensive extraction procedure. As a second step we established and validated the new turbidimetric test fCAL turbo on our Roche Cobas c501 analyzer. The fCAL turbo allows random access sample handling with a time to result of 12 min and with a measuring range of 20 – 8’000 µg/g. The time saving on hands-on-time was 70% and the total turn-around-time decreased to 20 minutes. The combination of the CALEX® Cap extraction device together with the new turbidimetric assay fCAL turbo is a paradigm-shift to total automation of calprotectin quantification in faeces. Moreover the CALEX® Cap, with its unique stability of 3 days at room temperature, would allow extraction by the patient at home increasing efficacy even more.