Celiac Patients Need a Follow Up Biopsy
Individuals suffering from celiac disease are known to be at an increased risk for lymphoma, a type of cancer that affects the lymphatic system. However, not every person diagnosed with celiac disease will get lymphoma, and some have a much greater risk of developing the disease than others. For many years, the medical community has been searching for ways to evaluate a celiac patient’s individual risk of lymphoma. Fortunately, a recent study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine indicates that a repeat intestinal biopsy may be able to accurately predict this risk.
About the Study
The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine was performed by researchers from Columbia University’s Celiac Disease Center and included over 7,600 patients who had follow-up biopsies between six months and five years after their original diagnosis. The results of the patients’ follow-up biopsies were catalogued, and the researchers continued to follow the patients’ individual cases for nine years.
When the follow-up biopsies were performed, 43 percent of patients’ intestines still exhibited signs of damage, while the remaining 57 percent had healed. Among all patients with celiac disease, the risk for lymphoma was 68 out of 100,000. This is nearly 3 times the rate of the general population, which is 24 in 100,000. However, patients whose follow-up biopsies showed continuing damage had a risk of 102 in 100,000, which is more than 4 times the rate of the general population. Conversely, the patients whose intestines had healed had a risk of 31.5 of 100,000, which is only 1.3 times the rate of the general population.
The study also showed that the degree of damage found in the intestines during the follow-up biopsy was correlated with the patients’ risk for lymphoma. Specifically, patients with only partial villous atrophy had a lower risk of developing lymphoma than patients with total villous atrophy. With respect to T-cell lymphoma, the risk for patients with partial villous atrophy was 3.4 times higher than that of the general population, while the risk for patients with total villous atrophy was 9 times higher than that of the general population.
How Does it Help?
Predicting a patient’s risk for lymphoma can be useful in several ways. All patients with celiac disease have an elevated risk of lymphoma. However, if tests show that a given patient is at an extremely high risk of developing the disease, the patient’s doctors can watch him or her closely for symptoms, thus allowing them to catch the cancer in its earliest and most treatable stages. Evaluating these risks among multiple patients may also help the medical community to better understand the connection that exists between celiac disease and lymphoma, thus allowing them to treat both conditions more effectively.
What it Means for Patients with Celiac Disease
While some doctors may perform follow-up intestinal biopsies on all patients with celiac disease as a routine, others may not, especially if your blood tests appear normal. However, because the results of blood tests are not always accurate indicators of the health of your villi, you should insist on at least one follow-up biopsy after undergoing a period of treatment. Not only will this test show whether your disease is responding to treatment, but it may also indicate whether you are at an increased risk for developing lymphoma.
This original article is made possible by Gluten Free Therapeutics. Our mission is to educate, inform, and provide the most effective nutritional products possible to allow those with celiac disease and serious gluten intolerances to heal their bodies. CeliVites complete line of superior gluten free supplements includes multivitamin/multimineral supplements, iron supplements, and calcium supplements for people living with celiac disease. All CeliVites products are designed to help you heal, restore and rebuild your body, because going gluten free isn’t enough!
Comments ()
