They develop a new non-invasive technique to detect celiac disease in children
Know that our son is celiac It can be painful ... literally. Therefore, any advance in the field of diseases (and its early diagnosis) is good news. In this line, scientists from the University of Granada have just developed a new system, cheap and fast, to find out if a child between two and four years suffer from silent celiac disease.
The main contribution of this new non-invasive technique is that it allows to diagnose the silent celiac disease without performing a blood draw, which reduces the pain for the child. The silent celiac disease is that whichand goes unnoticed by the doctor because it has minor symptoms that may even be imperceptible to the patient himself.
As explained by the UGR in a statement, this system does not need experienced personnel, although the interpretation must be done by health personnel. In addition, it is a quick option (done in 10 minutes) and cheap (10-12 euros per device) and, most importantly, "It is a less invasive method than blood extraction. "
Research on celiac disease
This scientific innovation has been developed by Mª Vega Almazán Fernández de Bobadilla, researcher of the department of Pediatrics of the University of Granada, who works in a project directed by José Maldonado Lozano. Part of its results have been published in the journal Pediatric Research.
"The idea of carrying out this work arose to try to answer the clinical question This is the result of my daily clinical care: what is the hidden or silent prevalence of celiac disease in our country? "explains Almazán, who is a pediatrician at the Maracena Health Center in Granada.
Silent celiac disease
The celiac disease is a systemic disease caused by a permanent intolerance to gluten in the diet (contained in wheat, barley and rye). As explained by the UGR, this disease " manifested by intestinal symptoms (poor intestinal absorption, abdominal distension, diarrhea, abdominal pain) and with extradigestive symptoms (skin, joint pain, headache, etc. "
In the case of silent celiac disease, however, this disease goes unnoticed both for the doctor and for the patient "for having minor imperceptible symptoms", which makes his diagnosis very difficult.
Currently, to diagnose the Celiac Disease a combination of clinical symptoms, a blood study of positive celiac disease antibodies and a compatible histological study by intestinal biopsy are necessary.
In order to study the prevalence Silent celiac disease between 2 and 4 yearsThese researchers from the University of Granada used novel devices that allow detecting the markers of the disease (autoantibodies) in the patient's capillary blood.
"It suffices with a puncture in the pulp of the child's finger to extract a droplet of blood that will be deposited in the device and, in case the subject suffers from the disease, a pink line will appear, similar to the pregnancy tests, which will mean that in their blood there are those autoantibodies characteristic of the disease ", explains Mª Vega Almazán.
Study on celiac disease with 198 children
Of course, if the result comes out positive, it will be necessary to make a blood test and measure the antibodies of the disease by other methods. Even so, if it comes out negative we will have discarded the disease in a fairly safe way and, incidentally, we will have saved the baby pain. "As we have seen in our study, a negative result of the strip reduced the probability of being celiac to zero, given its high negative predictive value ", argues the researcher.
The UGR assures that this study allowed the detection of six celiac children of 198 studied (which implies a very high prevalence of three percent, higher than the European average), when all of them were asymptomatic or with minor imperceptible symptoms that had not led to consult with their pediatrician for this reason.
"This is a novel study, because at Spanish and European level there are few published works with these devices in an apparently healthy population, "says Almazán, who says that he has this type of diagnostic methods in the consultation of the doctor or the pediatrician" would allow to find the cases of celiac disease that are not diagnosed due to its atypical symptoms and avoid unnecessary procedures and referrals, since a negative result would avoid the need for blood extraction or referral to specialized consultation ".
Angela R. Bonachera
