Silent celiac disease is frequent in the siblings of newly diagnosed celiac patients.

Background/aims: Celiac disease is caused by environmental and genetic factors, and the relatives of celiac patients are at higher risk of developing celiac disease than the general population. This prospective study evaluates the prevalence of celiac disease in the asymptomatic siblings of celiac patients.

Methods: Forty-eight siblings (22 males; mean age 13 years) of 39 celiac children (20 males; mean age 4 years), and 120 siblings (55 males; mean age 33 years) of 55 adult celiac patients (12 males; mean age 31 years) were serologically screened for celiac disease.

Coeliac disease: a histological follow-up study.

Aims: To assess the histological response to a gluten-free diet (GFD) in a series of coeliac patients in clinical remission, of different ages and with varying degrees of mucosal damage at diagnosis.

Methods And Results: Biopsy samples from 249 coeliac patients (F 165, M 84) were analysed basally and after clinical and biochemical remission following a GFD. All patients showed an improvement in mucosal findings after starting a GFD, but complete histological normalization was observed in 74.

Cerebellar degeneration and hearing loss in a patient with idiopathic myenteric ganglionitis.

A 35-year-old male with an 11-year history of intestinal pseudo-obstruction associated with an idiopathic inflammatory insult of the myenteric plexus and the presence of circulating anti-Hu antibodies developed a neurological syndrome characterized by bilateral hearing loss, deteriorating balance, an unsteady gait and difficulty in estimating distances. A similar neurological syndrome has previously been described in older patients among the paraneoplasic syndromes associated with small-cell lung carcinoma and the presence of circulating anti-Hu antibodies, but never in the rare cancer-free patients with anti-Hu-associated chronic idiopathic intestinal pseudo-obstruction. The patient underwent a steroid treatment.

Ringed oesophagus and idiopathic eosinophilic oesophagitis in adults: an association in two cases.

Ringed oesophagus is an increasingly recognised finding in young people presenting with dysphagia and may be related to eosinophilic oesophagitis. Recently, hypotheses regarding potential aetiologies have been proposed but these have not been systemically tested in the majority of reported cases. We report two cases very similar in clinical history and endoscopic findings.

Clinical and morphofunctional features of idiopathic myenteric ganglionitis underlying severe intestinal motor dysfunction: a study of three cases.

Ganglionitis, i.e., the inflammatory neuropathy characterized by a marked lymphoplasmacellular infiltrate in the myenteric plexus, may underlie a variety of paraneoplastic, infectious, or neurological disorders, although occasional cases are idiopathic in origin.