The most common way to get diagnosed with Celiac Disease typically involves two different tests. The first part is a blood test, and the second part is a biopsy to officially confirm Celiac Disease. Chances are if you know of anyone that has been officially diagnosed, this is the process they went through.
For people that are wanting to learn more about the testing process, I ran across a great post focusing specifically on the blood tests for Celiac Disease, which explains the varying types of blood tests that exist due to some being more sensitive towards milder forms of the disease while others are more specific for more severe forms of Celiac.
The most specific tests are tests for Celiac disease endomysial antibodies (EMA) and tissue transglutaminase antibody (tTG) tests. These two tests are IgA based tests and can be negative if you are deficient in the immunoglobin IgA, which occurs in 10-20% of people with Celiac. When either EMA or tTG are positive Celiac disease is very likely and usually the intestine biopsy is positive. Recent studies indicate that the tTG may only be positive in 40% of true Celiacs when mild degrees of intestine damage are present on biopsy. Seronegative Celiac, meaning the blood tests are negative but the biopsy is positive, may occur in up to 20% of Celiacs.
Antibodies for gliadin (AGA), the toxic fraction of gluten are considered very sensitive but not specific for Celiac disease. Newer assays for AGA antibodies for gluten that has undergone a chemical change called deamidation appear to be more specific for Celiac disease (Gliadin II, Inova) than the older gliadin tests. They also may be as or more accurate than EMA and tTG antibody tests but are not yet widely available.
If you’d like to learn more general information about getting diagnosed with celiac disease, check out our Celiac Diagnosis page.
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