ASSOCIATION OF POTENTIAL CELIAC DISEASE AND REFRACTORY IRON DEFICIENCY ANEMIA IN CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS.

BACKGROUND

Celiac disease is an enteropathy caused by dietary gluten. The combination of serologic, genetic and histologic data has led to description of other categories of this disease.

OBJECTIVE

There are a number of patients with iron deficiency anemia (IDA) that do not respond to iron treatment and may be repeated for many times, Therefore, we aimed to investigate celiac disease in this group.

METHODS

In this cross sectional transverse prospective study from August 2011 to February 2013, in a Pediatric care clinic affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, 184 children including 92 IDA patients who responded to treatment using iron supplement, 45 non-responding iron deficient patients, and 47 healthy individuals, with the maximum age of 18 years, with written consent from their parents, participated in serologic screening (with Anti-TTG antibody and anti-Endomysial antibody) for celiac disease. Patients with at least one positive serology test underwent multiple mucosal biopsy from bulb and duodenum.

RESULTS

Among 184 participants, 19 (10.3%) subjects had positive serologic test for celiac disease, including 13 (28.9%) patients in the group with refractory IDA, 5 (5.4%) patients in the group with treated IDA, and 1 patient in the healthy group. The frequency of positive serologic test in the group with IDA resistant to treatment was prominently higher than the other two groups (P<0.001). Among the patients with positive serologic celiac test who underwent endoscopy and biopsy, no histologic evidence of celiac disease was seen. They were diagnosed as potential celiac disease.

CONCLUSION

Frequency of potential celiac disease in patients with refractory IDA was higher than control the subjects. Therefore, we recommend serologic screening for early detection and minimizing the complications of celiac disease and repeated iron therapy for this group.