Premium
INTRAEPITHELIAL LYMPHOCYTE COUNTS IN SMALL INTESTINAL BIOPSIES FROM CHILDREN WITH DIARRHOEA
Author(s) -
FERGUSON ANNE,
McCLURE J. P.,
TOWNLEY R. R. W.
Publication year - 1976
Publication title -
acta pædiatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/j.1651-2227.1976.tb04929.x
Subject(s) - intraepithelial lymphocyte , villous atrophy , failure to thrive , coeliac disease , medicine , lamina propria , lymphocyte , atrophy , pathology , biopsy , intestinal mucosa , immunology , gastroenterology , disease , epithelium
. We have investigated small intestinal biopsies from children with coeliac disease, acute gastroenteritis, failure to thrive and giardiasis, to find out if a high intraepithelial lymphocyte count is a feature specific to coeliac disease, or whether it is always associated with partial or subtotal villous atrophy. The results indicate that the normal range for childrens' intraepithelial lymphocyte counts is similar to that for adults (around 6–40 lymphocytes per 100 epithelial cells); that counts are high in coeliac disease, but also in some children with giardiasis or with failure to thrive in whom the jejunal biopsy appears otherwise normal; and that intraepithelial lymphocyte counts are normal in acute gastroenteritis even when there is partial villous atrophy with increased lamina propria lymphoid cell infiltrate. Thus, this measurement of small intestinal lymphocyte infiltration may be of diagnostic value in differentiating the diarrhoea of food intolerance from infectious diarrhoeas in young children.