Coeliac disease: emerging in China?
- J Wu1,
- B Xia2,
- B M E von Blomberg3,
- C Zhao4,
- X W Yang4,
- J B A Crusius5,
- A S Peña5
- 1Department of Gastroenterology, Jiangsu Provincial Hospital of TCM, Nanjing, China
- 2Department of Gastroenterology, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University; Hubei Provincial Center for Clinical Study of Intestinal & Colorectal Diseases, Wuhan, China
- 3Medical Immunology, Department of Pathology, VU University Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- 4Clinical Laboratory, Jiangsu Provincial Hospital of TCM, Nanjing, China
- 5Laboratory of Immunogenetics, Department of Pathology, VU University Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Correspondence to Dr J Wu, Department of Gastroenterology, Jiangsu Provincial Hospital of TCM, Nanjing, 155 Hanzhong Road, Nanjing, China, 210029; zhwujing{at}yahoo.com.cn
We read with interest the leading article by Hunt and van Heel on recent advances in coeliac disease (CD) genetics.1 They suggested that further investigation of the coeliac-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in other populations was needed. Our recent work may help to push this research work in the Chinese population. Here we report on a serological screening for CD in China. CD has been historically considered to be absent in the Far East (China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, etc.).2 However, since the major known risk factors for CD are common in China, we used serological tests for immunoglobulin G (IgG) antigliadin antibodies (AGAs) and IgA antitissue transglutaminase antibodies (tTGs) to screen for CD in high risk patients,3 …
