ESPE Abstracts

Background: Owing to a common genetic background, patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) are at high risk of developing other autoimmune disorders. Celiac disease (CD) is the next in frequency after hashimoto’s Thyroiditis in these patients.

Objective and hypotheses: This study was undertaken to investigate the prevalence of CD in diabetic children and adolescent.

Method: 87 patients (44 female, 43 males) aged 2–18 years, with type 1 DM were subjected to screening for CD with tissue transglutaminase antibody (t TG-IgA) testing.

Results: The prevalence of CD in patients with T1DM was 3.4%. Diabetic patients with CD were significantly youngers, had an earlier onset of diabetes, had a lower height and weight standard deviation score and poorer glycemic control compared with diabetics without CD (P<0.05). We failed to show any significant correlation between tTG- positivity and duration of diabetes.

Conclusion: The results suggest tTG positivity to be a good immunological marker for use in screening for CD and such screening to be justified in all patients with T1DM regardless of diabetes duration.