Clinical and pathological spectrum of coeliac disease--active, silent, latent, potential.

Abstract

Currently recognised forms of gluten sensitive enteropathy Within the framework of the current definition (a permanent gluten sensitive enteropathy), clinical, pathological, epidemiological, and immunological approaches are revealing several forms of coeliac disease. In so called active coeliac disease, malabsorption, and nutritional deficiencies range from profound to minimal; clinically silent coeliac disease is being increasingly recognised-for example, in family studies. Pathologically there is also a degree of heterogeneity. Descriptive terms such as 'flatmucosa', or 'subtotalvillusatrophy', are the pathologist's shorthand for a cluster of features (villus, cryptsizes, epithelialcelldamage, intraepithelial and lamina propia lymphoid cell infiltrates) which together characterise the enteropathy of coeliac disease.