Complement activation capacity in plasma before and during high-dose prednisolone treatment and tapering in exacerbations of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis

Table 1 Complement activation in plasma from patients with Crohn's disease (CD), patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) and healthy subjects (HS) before and after 1, 6 and 12 weeks high-dose treatment with prednisolone.

	before treatment	after 1 week	after 6 weeks	after 12 weeks
	Number of patients	Number of patients	Number of patients	Number of patients
CD	18	18	18	18
UC	18	18	18	16
HS	38	--	--	--
C3-AC, alternative	% of standard	% of standard	% of standard	% of standard
CD	61.5 (53–82)	51.5 (49–71)	55.5 (49–70)	59 (49–75)
UC	58 (49–78)	49 (49–70)	49 (49–78)	59 (49–70)
HS	49 (49–67)	--	--	--
C3-AC, classical	% of standard	% of standard	% of standard	% of standard
CD	109 (81–172)	97.5 (39–124)	94.5 (70–141)	99.5 (53–143)
UC	97 (39–148)	88 (58–129)	91 (59–115)	94 (39–160)
HS	82.5 (68–108)	--	--	--
MBL-concentration	ng/ml	ng/ml	ng/ml	ng/ml
CD	3251 (14 – 6085)	3071 (10 – 4636)	2911 (10 – 5178)	3257 (10 – 4718)
UC	1082 (6 – 3926)	1171 (3 – 4845)	1141 (3 – 4590)	1292 (3 – 4147)
HS	1219 (2 – 3577)	--	--	--
MBL-C4-AC	% of standard	% of standard	% of standard	% of standard
CD	118 (21–187)	63 (25–192)	62.5 (21–163)	87 (17–192)
UC	54 (12–201)	54 (11–192)	45 (9–163)	55 (12–192)
HS	66.5 (9–162)	--	--	--

Median and range (in parenthesis) of alternative and classical pathway-mediated C3-activation capacity(C3-AC), mannan-binding lectin (MBL) concentration, MBL-C4-AC.