[Atrophy of the duodeno-jejunal mucosa in cow's milk protein intolerance. Importance of cell-mediated immunologic factors].

Cow's milk sensitive enteropathy has been described several times but in spite of that, it is still a problem concerning the pathogenesis. Our study involves the children hospitalized from 1974 to 1984 in the First Department of Pediatrics, University of Modena. Patients were suffering from chronic diarrhea and malabsorption. At the first biopsy each child showed atrophy of the small intestinal mucosa. All patients had been fed fed with gluten. We have followed the protocol for Celiac Disease's diagnosis; we found proved 85% of cases, excluded 15%. These last cases may be considered as cow's milk sensitive enteropathy. We catamnestically considered all the clinical and laboratory data of the two groups in the purpose of selecting significative parameters for a differential diagnosis. The data meaning fully different between the two groups resulted: family history of allergy, recurrent infections, positive occult blood in the stools, eosinophils in blood greater than 400/mm3 serum IgE value greater than 97 degrees P X (p less than 0.01). On the ground of recent studies the involvement of the cell-mediated immunity in cow's milk sensitive enteropathy is supposed.