Celiac disease arises when an individual’s immune system reacts inappropriately to gluten. The effort to enhance a celiac disease diagnosis is ongoing. A new study published in Gastroenterology examines the efficacy of diagnosing celiac disease. The goal of this study was to find out whether diagnosing celiac disease more precisely might be achieved using a blood test that monitors the production of interleukin-2, a protein that is made by some T-cells.
Overall, the test was able to accurately detect celiac disease since people who had it had greater levels and fold changes of interleukin-2. But the results were less accurate for people with a certain, less common gene. The test could provide another option for celiac disease diagnosis, particularly one that does not require triggering symptoms to confirm the disease.
This study has some issues. First of all, it was done in one place, most of the participants were women, and there were stringent rules on who could take part, so it can’t be applied to other groups.
Additionally, some of the subgroups had tiny sample sizes, which implies that more research may be needed in these groups. Researchers didn’t examine kids or adults who were using immunosuppressants, so more research is needed to find out how well this testing procedure would perform on these groups.
Shilpa Mehra Dang, MD, who is board-certified in both gastroenterology and internal medicine and works at the Medical Offices of Manhattan, said that “we need to look at bigger samples to really see its clinical usefulness.” Read the article
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