Improving celiac disease diagnostics – step towards prediction and earlier treatment

Celiac disease (CD) is a common, yet highly underdiagnosed dietary gluten driven gastrointestinal disorder. The disease is associated with severe health complications, increased morbidity and mortality which can likely be attenuated or prevented by early diagnosis and treatment. Serological screening by CD-specific antibodies is a reliable method to detect patients but whether population-based screening of CD is justified remains open. Moreover, at current, there is no information who should be subjected to serological CD screening and when and how often such screening should be conducted. Moreover, diagnosing subjects with only borderline or negative CD-specific antibodies is challenging and no tools exist for prediction of CD onset later in life. The current project focuses on investigating these issues.