TY - JOUR T1 - Antigliadin antibody testing for coeliac disease in children under 3 years of age is unhelpful JF - Journal of Clinical Pathology JO - J Clin Pathol SP - 766 LP - 767 DO - 10.1136/jcp.2008.063594 VL - 62 IS - 8 AU - S Holding AU - M Abuzakouk AU - P C Doré Y1 - 2009/08/01 UR - http://jcp.bmj.com/content/62/8/766.2.abstract N2 - It has been our practice to perform immunoglobulin (Ig)A anti-tissue transglutaminase (tTG), IgA/IgG antiendomysial (EMA) and IgA/IgG antigliadin (AGA) antibody tests for children under 3 years of age being investigated for coeliac disease. This was based on data showing that EMA may be negative in children. In a study of 277 children under 2 years of age who had biopsy-proven untreated coeliac disease, 88% were EMA positive, 100% were IgG-AGA positive, and 84% were IgA-AGA positive. Eleven per cent of patients were positive for AGA only (though 25% of these were positive for IgG-AGA only).1 The overall AGA specificity is poor, especially that of IgG-AGA.2 Importantly, over a third of AGA-positive young children became spontaneously negative over the following 3 years.3Data on using AGA alongside recombinant human tTG-based tests are limited and study sizes are small. Equivalent sensitivity of tTG and EMA has been shown with AGA in … ER -