Celiac disease with intra-abdominal adhesions in a 32-year-old female patient: a case report and literature review

Abstract

Celiac disease is an immune-mediated inflammatory disease. Symptoms are divided into typical gastrointestinal manifestations and atypical non-gastrointestinal manifestations. However, the atypical manifestations, which account for the majority of the presenting manifestations among celiac disease patients, include abdominal pain, bloating, vitamin and mineral deficiency, chronic fatigue and osteoporosis, intra-abdominal adhesions as a complication of celiac disease has never been reported. In this case, we report a female patient presented with chronic abdominal pain and steatorrhea. Celiac disease was diagnosed by serological tests and a duodenal biopsy. After the exclusion of gynecological and other gastrointestinal etiologies of intra-abdominal adhesions, the relation was assumed by the resolution of the intra-abdominal adhesions symptoms and improvement of follow-up computed tomography scans after a gluten-free diet. Intra-abdominal adhesion is an end-stage result of multiple gastrointestinal (GIT) and non-GIT disorders as inflammatory bowel disease and endometriosis. Although an indirect relationship between endometriosis and celiac disease has been previously discussed in the literature, celiac disease alone has never been reported to be the direct cause of intra-abdominal adhesions. So, we recommend if the patient is suspected to have celiac disease and reported with diarrhea or any other intra-abdominal adhesion symptoms, both a colonoscopy and a laparoscopy should be mandated to approach such case.