Contribution of Routine Endoscopic Biopsiesof the Duodenal Mucosa to Detection of Coeliac Disease in Adults - Initial Experience

Overview

Coeliac sprue is much more frequent than formerly assumed and many patients escapediagnosis for many years. The authors used as a baseline: 1. coeliac disease (gluten enteropathy)is frequently oligosymptomatic, asymptomatic or manifested in an atypical way, 2. it occursfrequently in the population, 3. even oligosymptomatic or asymptomatic patients benefit fromtreatment (i.e. adherence to a gluten-free diet), 4. coeliac disease can be suspected fromhistological examination of the duodenal mucosa (duodenoscopy is part of gastroscopy). Basedon these assumptions it is logical to make a biopsy of the duodenal mucosa during everygastroscopic examination whatever the indication.

Key words:
coeliac disease - gluten enteropathy - histological diagnosis - endoscopic duodenalbiopsy.