ABSTRACT
Background: Patients with diabetes are susceptible to systemic symptoms associated with coeliac disease (CD), in addition to gastrointestinal symptoms. It is necessary to regularly evaluate coeliac indicators in children with type 1 diabetes (T1DM) in order to improve diagnosis and treatment.
Aim of the Work: To assess the markers of celiac prevalence among children with T1DM in Fayoum governorate.
Patients and Methods: 1151 adolescents and children from Children's Hospital Fayoum University's endocrinology clinics as well as a few patients from Insurance Hospital participated in this study. According to celiac antibody screening, all patients were further categorized into two groups: 1087 T1DM patients in Group I had negative CD markers. 64 T1DM cases in Group II have positive coeliac markers.
Results: 1151 patients with T1DM were included. All patients were 18 years or younger in which 590 patients (51.3%) were males. The mean age of subjects was 15.5 years with a median duration of diabetes 6.5 years. All patients were screened for CD. 64 patients with positive celiac markers out of them 14 patients with spontaneous normalization of anti tTG IgA, 47 patients with persistent seropositive markers and 3 patients were lost to follow up. 13 children (20%) with positive CD markers were referred for small bowel biopsy.
Conclusion: This study suggests that monitoring of CD markers is a useful for CD diagnosis in children with T1DM even if children are asymptomatic.