Resumen de The Role of Endoscopy in Celiac Disease and its Complicatons: Advances in Imaging Techniques and Computerizaton

Adolfo Parra Blanco, Carlos Agüero, Daniel Gustavo Cimmino, Nicolás González, Patricio Ibáñez, Silvia Cecilia Pedreira

• Endoscopy, for many reasons, is an important technique in the diagnosis of celiac disease (CD),since it is currently the most widely used method for performing duodenal biopsies. On the otherhand, certain changes in the duodenal mucosa must warn the endoscopist of a possible celiacdisease. This is relevant, since it is well-known that most of the people who have this diseaseremain undiagnosed. With the development of endoscopy, diferent markers can be used to predict the existence ofvillous atrophy, but a high level of suspicion is required. The correct applicaton of guidelinesperforming biopsies for a celiac disease diagnosis, especially if there is a sufcient number ofsamples, is important to reach diagnosis. Besides, due to the fact that the spectrum of healthproblems related to celiac disease is quite wide, their possible associaton must be taken intoaccount and the performance of duodenal biopsies must be encouraged. This last decade’s technological achievements have greatly facilitated the study of the smallintestne via endoscopy. Even if these advanced techniques are generally unnecessary in mostcases, there are some of them in which the video capsule and/or enteroscopy allow to achieve adiagnosis, especially in refractory celiac disease cases. Other cutng-edge techniques, such asdigital chromoendoscopy, optcal coherence tomography and confocal endomicroscopy could beuseful to predict the existence of villous atrophy and some of them could even help theendoscopist recognize lesser degrees of celiac disease. The relevance of these techniques in dailypractce remains to be dilucidated.