Clinical diagnosis and screening of celiac disease

Celiac disease is the most prevalent chronic digestive disorder, it has an autoimmune origin and it appears in genetically predisposed persons. Apart from the clinical suspicion, there are many situations with evidence of association with celiac disease (type 1 Diabetes mellitus, Down, Turner and Williams syndromes, IgA selective deficit, autoimmune thyroiditis and first degree relatives of celiac patients) that make compulsory a screening diagnosis. There?s not enough evidence to recommend a mass poblational screening. The serologic marker of choice is human tissue transglutaminase IgA. On the other hand, the HLA DQ2/DQ8 antigens determination could be useful in uncertain cases or negative serology results in risk groups, since its negative predictive value is almost 100 percent.