Possible Oral Test for Celiac Disease in the Works?

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Written by Kyle Eslick / Published in Diagnosis

Currently testing for Celiac Disease is not very good. There are blood tests you can get and of course the infamous biopsy that most people with Celiac Disease have probably endured, but wouldn’t it be great if there was an oral test that could tell you whether or not you have Celiac Disease?

Today I noticed the following post and wanted to pass it along to our readers (bold is my emphasis):

Celiac disease (CD) is a lifelong immune-mediated disorder causedby the ingestion of wheat gluten in genetically susceptiblepersons. Most cases of CD are atypical and remain undiagnosed,which exposes the individuals to the risk of life-threateningcomplications. Serologic endomysial and tissue transglutaminaseantibody tests are used to screen at-risk individuals, althougha firm diagnosis requires demonstration of characteristic histopathologicfindings in the small-intestinal mucosa. A gluten challenge,with a repeat biopsy to demonstrate recurrence of histopathologicchanges in the intestinal mucosa after the re-introduction ofgluten, is considered for those persons in whom diagnosis remainsin doubt. In this paper, we review studies that evaluated: (1)the possibility of using oral mucosa for the initial diagnosisof CD or for local gluten challenge; and (2) the possibilityof using salivary CD-associated antibodies as screening tests.Our review shows that orally based diagnosis of CD is attractiveand promising, although additional evaluations with standardizedcollection and analysis methods are needed. There is some evidenceof a dissociation between systemic and oral mucosal immune responsesin CD. The hypothesis that gluten could stimulate naïvelymphocytes directly in the oral cavity would have importantimplications for the understanding, diagnosis, and managementof CD.