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. 2022 Feb;50(2):3000605221076923.
doi: 10.1177/03000605221076923.

Celiac disease may be rare among children in South China

Cui-Ping Liang  1   2 , Lan-Lan Geng  2 , Pei-Yu Chen  2 , Hui-Wen Li  2 , Lu Ren  2 , Si-Tang Gong  1   2
Affiliations

Celiac disease may be rare among children in South China

Cui-Ping Liang et al. J Int Med Res. 2022 Feb.

Abstract

Objective: The prevalence of celiac disease (CD) varies geographically and ethnically; however, the prevalence among children in South China remains unknown. We therefore determined the occurrence of CD among Chinese children in South China.

Methods: Serum samples were collected from children and assessed for anti-tissue transglutaminase IgA antibodies (anti-tTG-IgA) and total IgA. Anti-tTG-IgA+ participants underwent human leukocyte antigen (HLA) DQ2/DQ8 determination. Samples with serum total IgA <0.05 g/L were also analyzed for anti-tTG-IgG, and for HLA-DQ2/DQ8 if the values were above borderline. Participants who were anti-tTG-IgA/IgG+ and HLA-DQ2+ and/or HLA-DQ8+ underwent small bowel biopsy.

Results: A total of 8794 children were enrolled, of whom 479 had chronic unexplained abdominal symptoms. Three (0.034%) children were anti-tTG-IgA+ and ten (0.114%) had serum total IgA <0.05 g/L, all of whom were anti-tTG-IgG-. The three positive children were all HLA-DQ2+ and/or HLA-DQ8+. Two underwent gastroscopy, and histopathology of small intestinal biopsy showed duodenal villous blunting in one and increased intraepithelial lymphocytes in the other, neither consistent with a diagnosis of CD.

Conclusion: Our study showed a prevalence of CD autoimmunity of 0.034% and failed to identify any cases of CD, suggesting a low prevalence of CD among children in South China.

Keywords: Celiac disease; China; HLA-DQ2; HLA-DQ8; IgA antibody; child; tissue transglutaminase.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Flowchart of the study. CD: celiac disease; anti-tTG-IgA: anti-tissue transglutaminase IgA antibodies; anti-tTG-IgG: anti-tissue transglutaminase IgG antibodies; HLA-DQ2: human leukocyte antigen-DQ2; HLA-DQ82: human leukocyte antigen-DQ8; IEL: intraepithelial lymphocyte.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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