TY - JOUR T1 - High Incidence of Celiac Disease in Patients with Systemic Sclerosis JF - The Journal of Rheumatology JO - J Rheumatol DO - 10.3899/jrheum.081000 SP - jrheum.081000 AU - Edoardo Rosato AU - Daniela De Nitto AU - Carmelina Rossi AU - Valerio Libanori AU - Giuseppe Donato AU - Marco Di Tola AU - Simonetta Pisarri AU - Felice Salsano AU - Antonio Picarelli Y1 - 2009/04/01 UR - http://www.jrheum.org/content/early/2009/03/29/jrheum.081000.abstract N2 - Objective To evaluate the presence of celiac disease in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc). The association of autoimmune diseases with celiac disease has been reported, but few publications deal with the combination of SSc and celiac disease. Methods We investigated the presence of anti-tissue transglutaminase (anti-tTG) antibodies and serum antiendomysial antibodies (anti-EMA) in 50 patients with SSc. All subjects were on a gluten-containing diet. Duodenal mucosa histology and biopsy culture were performed in anti-tTG-positive patients; anti-EMA and IgA, IgG1 anti-tTG were detected in culture supernatants. Results The incidence of celiac disease in patients with SSc was found to be 8%. Serum anti-tTG antibody-positive results were detectable in 5 out of 50 patients with SSc, but only in 4 of them was the diagnosis confirmed by histological results (Marsh classification). Conclusion Our data show an increased prevalence of celiac disease in patients with SSc. ER -