CELIAC DISEASE AND CHRONIC ENTERITIS: CLINICAL AND MORPHOLOGICAL PARALLELS (SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES)

Abstract

Clinical features and the morphofunctional status of the small intestine (SI) have been determined with the help of modern clinical-laboratory and morphological methods of the investigation in 40 children aged 1 to 17 years with suspicion of “celiac disease”. As a result of the study, there were determined criteria to allow made a clear differential diagnosis between non-celiac gluten intolerance and the hyperregenerative form of atrophy of the SI mucosal membrane. In children with the unconfirmed diagnosis of the celiac disease in biopsy specimens of mucosal membrane of SI, a morphological pattern has been established to be determined by the presence of inflammation of different degrees of the severity and the prevalence rate against the background of shortened and dilated villi. The presence of villi subatrophy was shown not to be an occasion to consider this process within the framework of the diagnosis of the hyperregenerative form of atrophy of SI mucosal membrane. The histological picture of the inflammatory process found in these cases in combination with a certain reduction in villi is noted in nonspecific inflammatory processes of the gastrointestinal tract (enteritis, colitis), allergic conditions.