Aim: Celiac disease (CD) and type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM1) can frequently coexist, presumably due to a common genetic predisposition. The present study was designed to evaluate the frequency of CD among Tunisian children with DM1.
Patients and methods: A total of 205 diabetic children (92 girls, 113 boys, age range 6 months-15 years, median 11 years) were screened for CD by determination of IgA anti-endomysium antibodies (EMA).
Results: EMA were positive in 17 out of 205 (8.3%) children with DM1. The median age of DM1 at onset was significantly lower in patients with EMA than those without EMA (P<10(-7)). In 13 of 17 EMA-positive patients, duodenal biopsy could be performed and a destructive type of CD was confirmed in 11 of them: 8 patients showed total villous atrophy, 3 patients showed a partial villous atrophy. The other two patients showed a normal histological picture with normal number of intraepithelial lymphocytes. Parents of the remaining EMA-positive children refused endoscopy. Thus the prevalence of biopsy-proven CD was 5.3% (11/205). It was 7.6% (7/92) in girls and 3.5% (4/113) in boys but the difference was not statistically significant. Seventy three percent of patients with CD were asymptomatic.
Conclusions: The prevalence of clinically unrecognized CD, found by EMA screening, is high in Tunisian children with DM1. We suggest that children with diabetes should be screened for CD.