Skin manifestations in individuals with undiagnosed celiac seropositivity: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND

Celiac disease (CD) is an underdiagnosed disease with a significant diagnostic delay. Previous studies have shown associations between CD and several skin diseases.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this article was to investigate the association between undiagnosed celiac seropositivity and prevalence of self-reported skin symptoms and diseases in adults.

METHODS

In a Danish population-based cohort comprising 9656 participants, we identified individuals with undiagnosed celiac seropositivity, defined by celiac antibody positivity against immunoglobulin (Ig) A and/or IgG tissue transglutaminase (TTG) ≥7 U/mL and/or IgG deamidated gliadin peptide ≥10 U/mL, without a known diagnosis of CD in the National Patient Register. Information on skin symptoms and diseases were obtained from participant-completed questionnaires. The associations between skin symptoms and diseases and undiagnosed celiac seropositivity were analyzed by ꭓ2 or Fisher's exact test and logistic regression were used to calculate odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI).

RESULTS

We excluded 13 participants with a previous CD diagnosis and 386 participants due to missing measurements of CD antibodies, resulting in a study population of 9257 participants. In this population, 0.76% (70/9257) had undiagnosed celiac seropositivity. There were no statistically significant differences in skin symptoms and diseases between participants with and without undiagnosed celiac seropositivity; the OR for any skin symptom or disease was 0.83 (95% CI: 0.41-1.67) among individuals with undiagnosed celiac seropositivity compared with individuals without.

CONCLUSION

In this cross-sectional study, we found no differences in self-reported skin symptoms and diseases between participants with and without undiagnosed celiac seropositivity.