Nevertheless, gluten-free diet doesnt completely normalise the quality of life. Vaccination
Even though it is unclear if coeliac patients have a generally increased risk of infectious diseases, they should generally be encouraged to receive all common vaccines against vaccine preventable diseases (VPDs) as the general population. Moreover, some pathogens could be harmful to coeliac patients. According to the European Society for the Study of Celiac Disease (ESsCD), coeliac disease can be associated with hyposplenism or functional asplenia, which could result in impaired immunity to encapsulated bacteria, with an increased risk of such infections. For this reason, patients who are known to be hyposplenic should be administered at least the pneumococcal vaccine. However, the ESsCD states that it is not clear whether vaccination with the conjugated vaccine is preferable in this setting and whether additional vaccination against Haemophilus, meningococcus, and influenza should be considered if not previously given. However, Mårild et al. suggested considering additional vaccination against influenza because of an observed increased risk of hospital admission for this infection in celiac patients. Refractory disease
Between 0.3% and 10% of affected people have refractory disease, which means that they have persistent villous atrophy on a gluten-free diet despite the lack of gluten exposure for more than 12 months. Nevertheless, inadvertent exposure to gluten is the main cause of persistent villous atrophy, and must be ruled out before a diagnosis of refractory disease is made. People with poor basic education and understanding of gluten-free diet often believe that they are strictly following the diet, but are making regular errors.
After x-ray verification of its position, suction was applied to collect part of the intestinal wall inside the capsule. Often-utilised capsule systems were the Watson capsule and the Crosby–Kugler capsule. This method has now been largely replaced by fibre-optic endoscopy, which carries a higher sensitivity and a lower frequency of errors.Capsule endoscopy (CE) allows identification of typical mucosal changes observed in coeliac disease but has a lower sensitivity compared to regular endoscopy and histology. CE is therefore not the primary diagnostic tool for coeliac disease. However, CE can be used for diagnosing T-cell lymphoma, ulcerative jejunoileitis, and adenocarcinoma in refractory or complicated coeliac disease. Pathology
The classic pathology changes of coeliac disease in the small bowel are categorised by the "Marsh classification":
Marsh stage 0: normal mucosa
Marsh stage 1: increased number of intra-epithelial lymphocytes (IELs), usually exceeding 20 per 100 enterocytes
Marsh stage 2: a proliferation of the crypts of Lieberkühn
Marsh stage 3: partial or complete villous atrophy and crypt hypertrophy
Marsh stage 4: hypoplasia of the small intestine architectureMarshs classification, introduced in 1992, was subsequently modified in 1999 to six stages, where the previous stage 3 was split in three substages. Further studies demonstrated that this system was not always reliable and that the changes observed in coeliac disease could be described in one of three stages:
A representing lymphocytic infiltration with normal villous appearance;
B1 describing partial villous atrophy; and
B2 describing complete villous atrophy.The changes classically improve or reverse after gluten is removed from the diet.