Diagnostic performance of serum oncostatin M and MMP-9 in differentiating disease activity in Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis

Abstract

Introduction and aim. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) requires reliable noninvasive biomarkers for diagnosis and disease activity monitoring. Oncostatin M (OSM) and matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) are implicated in intestinal inflammation and tissue remodeling, yet their combined diagnostic utility in IBD remains underexplored. The aim was to evaluate serum OSM and MMP-9 levels in Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) patients compared to healthy controls, and to assess their correlation with disease activity and diagnostic performance. Material and methods. This cross-sectional study included 105 participants (35 CD, 35 UC, 35 controls). Serum OSM and MMP-9 were measured by ELISA. Disease activity was evaluated using CDAI and the Total Mayo Score. ROC curve analysis evaluated diagnostic accuracy. Results Both OSM and MMP-9 were significantly elevated in CD and UC compared to controls (p=0.016 and p=0.006, respectively), with progressive increases paralleling disease severity (p<0.001). For differentiating active from inactive CD, OSM demonstrated a high AUC of 0.951 (95% CI: 0.882–1.000) with 100% specificity (95% CI: 71.5%–100.0%). For active UC, MMP-9 achieved an AUC of 0.85 (95% CI: 0.724–0.976) with 95.4% sensitivity (95% CI: 78.9%–99.9%). Conclusion. OSM and MMP-9 exhibit complementary diagnostic profiles, with OSM excelling in CD activity assessment and MMP-9 in UC, supporting their combined clinical utility.