Serologic markers of viral and autoimmune liver diseases in celiac patients treated at the Institute of Gastroenterology

Abstract

Introduction: The spectrum of hepatic involvement in celiac disease is very broad and includes viral and autoimmune hepatopathies.Objective: To characterize the behavior of serologic markers of viral and autoimmune hepatopathies in adult celiac patients treated at the Institute of Gastroenterology.Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted in 43 adult celiac patients treated at the Institute of Gastroenterology of Havana from March 2016 to March 2017. Prior informed consent, biochemical and serologic studies were carried out in all cases, in order to identify hepatitis B and C virus infections and humoral immune response to liver and systemic autoantibodies. Frequency distributions were used for statistical analysis, and Fisher's exact test was used for the comparison between groups.Results: 58.1% of the patients presented hypophosphatasemia and hypertransaminasemia in 14%, with no coincidence between the cases recorded. The 100% of the celiac patients were negative for hepatitis C virus. The positivity of liver autoantibodies was recorded between 2,3% and 14% of the patients evaluated. There was a significant association between hypertransaminasemia and the presence of serum antibodies against tissue transglutaminase.Conclusions: The expression markers of liver autoimmunity in celiac patients was frequent, but not the presence of markers of viral hepatopathy.Keywords: celiac disease, hypertransaminasemia, viral hepatitis, autoimmune liver disease.