Frequency of celiac disease among the children with type I diabetes mellitus

Abstract

Aim: To determine the frequency of celiac disease in pediatric age group patients of type 1 diabetes mellitus. Material: This cross-sectional descriptive study including 100 children with type-I diabetes mellitus, both genders and aged between 1 to 12 years, was done at Department of Pediatric Medicine, DHQ Teaching Hospital, Sargodha from 20th February 2017 to 19th September 2017. Tissue transglutaminase antibody level was estimated in Blood samples for diagnosis of celiac disease. Results: The mean age of children was 7.8±2.7 years. In the whole sample, there were 45 (45.0%) male and 55 (55.0%) female patients. The mean duration of T1D was 3.4±1.4 years. Diabetes was controlled in 83 (83.0%) patients while 17 (17.0%) patients had uncontrolled diabetes. Celiac disease was diagnosed in 11 (11.0%) children with T1D. There was no significant difference of celiac disease between children of different ages (p-value=0.983), any gender (p-value=0.974), duration (p-value=0.655) and control of diabetes (p-value=0.912). Conclusions: A substantial proportion of children with T1D had celiac disease which warrants routine screening of such children in future practice to enable timely identification and management of celiac disease and hence improve the outcome.