Antiendomysium antibodies assay in the culture medium of intestinal mucosa: an accurate method for celiac disease diagnosis.

Background: Celiac disease (CD) diagnosis is becoming more difficult as patients with no intestinal histology lesions may also be suffering from CD.

Aim: To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of antiendomysium (EmA) assay in the culture medium of intestinal biopsies for CD diagnosis.

Patients And Methods: The clinical charts of 418 patients with CD and 705 non-CD controls who had all undergone EmA assay in the culture medium were reviewed.

[Iron overload disease: recent findings].

Iron overload diseases are due to a progressive increase in total body iron stores that leads to deposition of iron in parenchymal organs and to subsequent damage to these organs. The commonest inherited form of iron overload is hereditary hemochromatosis (HH), an autosomal recessive disorder affecting the white population. Although in the western world and in northern Europe the majority of cases of HH are associated with an HFE gene mutation (C282Y and H63D), there are families with a familial iron overload disorder in whom neither the C282Y nor the H63D mutations were found.