Samreen Soomro, Samina Baig, Shaheen Sharafat, Talat Mirza.
Prevalence of Tissue Transglutamase Antibodies in cases of Celiac Disease.
J Dow Uni Health Sci Jan ;9(1):9-13.

Celiac disease is a human leukocyte antigen-DQ2 (or DQ8) associated autoimmune disorder of the small intestine induced by dietary exposure to wheat gliadin, barley hordein, rye secalin and possibly oat avenis. It is characterized by mucosal damage, loss of absorptive villi and hyperplasia of the crypts leading to malabsorption. In addition, to nutrient deficiencies and growth failure, prolonged untreated celiac disease is associated with an increased risk of malignancy, especially intestinal T cell lymphoma. Tissue transglutaminase antibody tTG antibodies of isotype IgA and IgG is a simple, sensitive and specific noninvasive screening test for diagnosis of celiac disease, particularly in developing countries like Pakistan. In current study from September 2010 to May 2014, samples from 3643 cases referred to Dow Diagnostic Research and Reference lab were screened for serum IgA and IgG for tissue transglutaminase by ELISA. Results showed that about 1290 patients were anti TtG IgA positive including male and female with a ratio of 1:1.4 respectively, indicating an active stage of the disease. Children (age group between 0 to 16) showed a greater prevalence i.e 37% as compared to other age group. However IgG against tissue transglutaminase didn’t show any significant prevalence pattern.

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