Abstract
With reference to the paper of Bartusek D et al.: "Small bowel ultrasound in patients with celiac disease. Retrospective study" (Eur J Radiol 2007;63:302-6) we would like to call your attention to the fact that the authors consider atypical and potential celiac disease (CD) to be one form of the disease.
This is, however, not true. The correct synonym for atypical CD is subclinical or extraintestinal CD.
Potential CD is characterized by normal architecture of the small intestinal mucosa and the immunological abnormality is manifested with one marker only: either with positive serum autoantibodies or with increased count of intraepithelial lymphocytes in the biopsy. Consequently, the data in Table 1 are misleading in several aspects.
Histology Marsh 2 or 3 cannot be found in potential CD. The group of silent CD included 20 subjects according to the paragraph "Material and Methods" and according to Table 1 21 subjects.
This clinical form of CD should include symptom-free patients with positive serum antibodies and small-intestinal histology. Nevertheless, according to Table 1 nearly half of patients in this group experienced dyspeptic signs without a more detailed description.
On the other hand, gliadin and serum transglutaminase antibodies as well as histology were evaluated only in 16 patients. The explanation of these discrepancies would be very welcomed.