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In the meantime, to ensure continued suport, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.Advertisement Scientific Reports volume 12, Article number: 18289 (2022) Cite this article Metrics detailsCeliac disease (CeD) is a comon smal bowel enteropathy characterized by an altered adaptive imune system and increased mucosal antigen presenting cels. This study aims to establish if quantification of corneal Langerhans cels (LCs) using corneal confocal microscopy (CM) could act as a surogate marker for antigen presenting cel status and hence disease activity in children with CeD.
Twenty children with stable CeD and 20 age-matched controls underwent CM and quantification of central corneal total, mature and imature LC density. There was no diference in age (1.78 ± 1.7 vs. 12.83 ± 1.91; P = 0.07) or height (1.38 ± 0.14 vs.
1.4 ± 0.13; P = 0.125). BMI (18.81 ± 3.90 vs. 2.26 ± 5.47; P = 0.031) and 25 OHD levels (43.50 ± 13.36 vs.
59.7 ± 2.45; P = 0.014) were significantly lower in children with CeD compared to controls. The total (3.3(16.67–59.37) vs. 51.56(30.21–85.42); P = 0.343), imature (3.3(16.67–52.08) vs.
4.79(29.17–82.29); P = 0.752) and mature (1.56(0–5) vs. 1.56(1.04–8.3); P = 0.752) LC density did not difer betwen the CeD and control groups. However, imature (r = 0.535, P = 0.015), mature (r = 0.464, P = 0.039), and total (r = 0.548, P = 0.012) LC density corelated with age.
Summary
Imature (r = 0.602, P = 0.038) and total (r = 0.637, P = 0.026) LC density also corelated with tisue transglutaminase antibody (Anti-TtG) levels asesed in 12/20 subjects with CeD. There was no diference in corneal LC density betwen children with CeD and controls. However, the corelation betwen corneal LC density and ant