An autoimmune disease refractory to immunosuppressive regimens: Celiac disease diagnosed long after liver transplantation

Abstract

CD is defined as T-lymphocyte-mediated gluten sensitivity. Although CD is known to affect the small intestine, it is nonetheless a multisystem disorder. Liver involvement in CD may vary from isolated hypertransaminasemia to cirrhosis. Because CD is an inappropriate immune response to gluten proteins, strict gluten-free diet is the principal therapy, along with management of liver dysfunction. In patients who fail to respond to a gluten-free diet, immunosuppressive drugs may improve intestinal inflammatory activity in untreated CD. The present case report is of a 25-yr-old woman with diarrhea lasting several weeks. The patient had received a liver transplant 13yr earlier, and presented with cryptogenic cirrhosis diagnosed as CD. This appears to be the first case of its kind in which a pediatric long-term liver transplant patient presents with diarrhea eventually diagnosed as CD whose diet included gluten, and who was treated by an immunosuppressive drug regimen. Because of the normalization of CD-related antibodies in the post-transplantation period without gluten restriction, CD should be part of a list of diagnostic possibilities in liver transplant patients presenting with diarrhea of unknown etiology.