A patient is described with a severe malabsorption syndrome which failed to respond to a gluten-free diet. Although subtotal villous atrophy was present in the jejunal mucosa, histological features of subepithelial fibrosis and apparently normal enterocytes were not suggestive of coeliac disease. The findings of decreased mucosal thickness, of a normal mitotic rate in the crypt cell population,...

Celiac disease (CD) is an inflammatory disease, triggered by an immunologic response to gluten in wheat, which manifests itself by symptoms such as diarrhoea, abdominal pain and malabsorption. CD results in an inflamed small intestine with varying degree of villous atrophy, crypt hyperplasia, increased intraepithelial lymphocytes and increased paracellular permeability of the intestinal epithel...

A 62-year-old woman complaining of severe malabsorption was diagnosed with celiac disease based on the findings of flat, small intestinal mucosa and HLA-DQ2 positivity, although celiac serology was negative. This diagnosis was questioned due to the lack of clinical and histological improvement after a long period of strict gluten-free diet. The detection of enterocyte autoantibodies guided to t...

Two fatal cases of infantile rotavirus enteritis occurred in northern Italy in 2005. Both children were severely dehydrated, and death was related to severe cerebral edema. Histological examination demonstrated extensive damage of the intestinal epithelium, villous atrophy or blunting, and macrophage infiltration. The two rotavirus strains were of the G1P[8] type and the long electropherotype. ...

Refractory celiac disease (CD) is a clinical diagnosis defined by the persistence of signs/symptoms, laboratory abnormalities or villous atrophy typical of CD despite strict adherence to a gluten-free diet for at least 6 - 12 months. It should be suspected when patients with CD fail to respond primarily or secondarily to a gluten-free diet, especially if there is significant weight loss. Differ...

Environmental enteric dysfunction, an asymptomatic condition characterized by inflammation of the small bowel mucosa, villous atrophy, malabsorption, and increased intestinal permeability, is a major contributor to childhood stunting in low-income countries. Here we report the relationship of increased intestinal permeability with serum metabolites in 315 children without acute malnutrition, ag...

A total of 215 diabetic children were screened for coeliac disease by determination of class specific serum reticulin antibody. Nine children were positive for reticulin antibody and all underwent biopsy of the small intestine. Four new cases of coeliac disease were found; all of these children had IgA reticulin antibody. Two of three other children with a low titre of IgA reticulin antibody ha...

A 28-year-old man from East Mediterranean area admitted with abdominal pain, weight loss and diarrhea. Barium x-ray studies showed segmentation, dilatation of bowel loops, mucosal folds thickening and delayed intestinal transit. Histological examination of biopsy specimens revealed villous atrophy and plasmacytic infiltration limited to mucosa and submucosa. Computed tomography showed multiple ...

Intestinal biopsies from 146 patients with adult coeliac disease and 13 patients with intestinal villous atrophy of different aetiology were assessed for the presence of subepithelial collagen and compared with a group of 20 control subjects. Subepithelial collagen was a common and non-specific finding observed in intestinal biopsies from patients suffering from adult coeliac disease (36%) and ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Previous small studies suggest that chronic atrophic gastritis is common in dermatitis herpetiformis (DH). We here examined the frequency and topography of chronic gastritis in 93 untreated DH subjects and in 186 controls with dyspepsia. METHODS Specimens were drawn from the gastric corpus and antrum and examined for atrophy, intestinal metaplasia, and Helicobacter py...