Serum Calprotectin as predictor of Rheumatoid Arthritis disease severity and Mortality

Elevated serum calprotectin (sCAL) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is linked to higher disease activity, accelerated radiographic progression, and increased all-cause mortality (HR 2.99).

• Why it matters: Clinicians need biomarkers that track inflammatory activity and identify RA patients at elevated cardiovascular risk and mortality beyond standard measures like CRP.
• What they did: In 2677 inflammatory rheumatic disease patients from the Swiss registry (1472 RA, 771 axSpA, 434 PsA) plus 248 healthy donors, sCAL was tested against disease activity, radiographic progression, cardiovascular biomarkers, incident MACE, and mortality using ROC, Cox regression, and Kaplan-Meier models.
• The result: sCAL was higher in RA than in axSpA, PsA, or healthy donors, modestly discriminated IRDs (AUC 0.56), improved active synovitis discrimination (AUC 0.67 vs 0.62 for CRP), and independently predicted incident MACE (HR 2.10) and multiple mortality causes.

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