Oita Tatsuo, Yamashiro Akiko, Mizutani Fumiko, Tamura Akiyo, Sakizono Kenji, Okada Akihiko
Department of Clinical Laboratory, Kobe City General Hospital, Kobe 650-0046.
Rinsho Byori. 2003 Oct;51(10):974-7.
Celiac disease is a permanent intolerance to ingested gluten that results in immunologically mediated inflammatory damage of the small intestinal mucosa. Here we report the case of a patient with Celiac disease demonstrating simultaneous macroamylasemia and macrolipasemia. The patient showed persistently elevated levels of serum amylase and lipase. Amylase and lipase in normal serum were eluted from a Superdex-200 column after the 4S protein. These enzymes in the serum from this patient were eluted in the 19S protein. This finding indicated that these enzymes from this patient had a molecular weight greater than that of normal amylase and lipase. Immunoprecipitation assay showed that amylase was bound to polyclonal IgG and IgA, whereas lipase was bound to polyclonal IgA. To our knowledge, the simultaneous presence of macroamylase and macrolipase in the same patient has been previously reported in only four cases. Interestingly, two of those patients had Celiac disease. If macroamylase and macrolipase are present, the possibility of Celiac disease should be considered.