Not everything is coeliac disease what it seems Concomitance of inflammatory bowel disease and coeliac disease - Case report

The prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease is ten times more common in patients with celiac disease; however, studies investigating the reverse relation have contradictory findings. Many gene polymorphisms are known to be present in both diseases; furthermore, similarities observed in their pathophysiological mechanism, their family concomitance, results of the serologic analysis and their macroscopic and microscopic symptoms in the gastro-intestinal system suggest a relevant association between the two diseases. The author presents the history of four patients, of whom two had both Crohn's and coeliac diseases. In the two other patients with inflammatory bowel disease the possible diagnosis of coeliac disease was suspected, but after additional examinations coeliac disease was excluded in one patient and seemed to be unlikely in the other patient. The author concludes that the differential diagnosis of the two diseases is not easy and if one of them is diagnosed, the possible presence of the other one should be taken into consideration.