The prevalence of unrecognized adult celiac disease in Central Anatolia.
BACKGROUND
The aim of this study is to assess the prevalence of unrecognized adult celiac disease in Central Anatolia of Turkey and establish if prevalence figures are similar to other reports in the international literature.


METHODS
Subjects were randomly selected from patients at the time of blood sampling because of a routine examination or suspicion of some disorder other than celiac diseases and were screened with anti-tissue transglutaminase IgA and serum IgA measurements. Duodenal biopsies were taken from the patients who were found positive for anti-tissue transglutaminase IgA and had low IgA levels.


RESULTS
A total of 906 subjects between 20 and 59 years of age were included. Small bowel biopsies were performed for 55 of the 906 participants. Fifty-two of 55 participants taken biopsies had anti-tissue transglutaminase IgA levels greater than 15 IU/mL and 3 of them had low IgA levels. Celiac disease was diagnosed as 9 of 906 (0.99%). The majority of the patients with celiac disease had nonspecific gastrointestinal symptoms. There was no correlation between the titers of anti-tissue transglutaminase IgA and the severity of histopathologic findings.


CONCLUSIONS
In this study, we found that unrecognized adult celiac disease in Central Anatolia affects approximately 1% of the population, and the major constellation of symptoms are nonspecific gastrointestinal related. Serologic data are not adequate for a definite diagnosis, but the anti-tissue transglutaminase IgA test has high diagnostic value and may be used as screening tool. Confirmation with intestinal biopsy is required for a definite diagnosis.
Gursoy
Sebnem
S
Department of Gastroenterology, Erciyes University School of Medicine, Kayseri, Turkey. sgursoy@erciyes.edu.tr
Guven
Kadri
K
Simsek
Tayfun
T
Yurci
Alper
A
Torun
Edip
E
Koc
Nedret
N
Patiroglu
Tahir E
TE
Ozbakir
Omer
O
Yucesoy
Mehmet
M
D000328:Adult; D001706:Biopsy; D002446:Celiac Disease / Q000453:epidemiology*; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007070:Immunoglobulin A / Q000097:blood; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D014421:Turkey / Q000453:epidemiology
D007070:Immunoglobulin A