Thursday, February 09, 2012
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Celiac disease may not raise ESR
November 2009
Celiac disease is characterized by villous atrophy, but also by inflammation with lymphocytes and plasma cells. So why is the ESR normal in celiac disease? CHRISTOPHER JUSTINICH, MD, Kingston, ON
I agree that there’s significant inflammation in celiac disease. But erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) is not a reliable indicator of this, as it is in some other conditions. One explanation may be that there’s no systemic inflammation in uncomplicated celiac disease. That’s why we tend to rely on tissue translutaminase IgA antibodies in monitoring these patients rather than ESR. I don’t routinely use the ESR in this group of patients.
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