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What might this EMA result mean?

Toaster
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Toaster Newbie
Toaster
Posted

EMA Iga 1.24 g/L

It's in my medical records but has never been mentioned to me. 

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trents Grand Master
trents
Posted

Welcome to the forum, @Toaster!

EMA is a celiac disease specific antibody test. It was one of the first antibody tests developed for celiac disease but it has fallen out of favor in recent years. It is an excellent test but expensive to administer as it requires the use of animal organ tissue (esophagus I think) in order to be run. Since then, a less expensive test known as the tTG-IGA has been developed that essentially accomplishes the same thing.

Your test result of 1.24 g/L is meaningless unless you can also supply the reference range values used by the lab. Different labs use different reference ranges for negative vs. positive. There is no standard.

The EMA test is discussed in this article along with other celiac disease antibody tests:

 

Toaster Newbie
Toaster
Posted
  • Author

Thank you. There is no reference range mentioned unfortunately.

trents Grand Master
trents
Posted

Have you been diagnosed with celiac disease or are you looking into it?

Toaster Newbie
Toaster
Posted
  • Author

I'm looking into it. I have several quite low vitamin results which I believe may be from malabsorption. B12, ferritin, folate, vit d all very low. Re-occuring mouth issues, gut issues. 

trents Grand Master
trents
Posted

Were there any other tests besides the EMA run for celiac disease? If not, you should request them. At minimum, "total IGA" and "tTG-IGA" should be ordered. A more complete celiac panel would also include the DGP-IGA, DGP-IGG and TTG-IGG. And very importantly, you should not have been reducing gluten consumption in the weeks/months leading up to the testing blood draw.

Toaster Newbie
Toaster
Posted
  • Author

No other tests. This was from about 10 years ago, I noticed it when checking through my all bloods to look for patterns. 

I will go back to my doctor...

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Scott Adams Grand Master
Scott Adams
Posted

Let us know what you find out, the reference ranges should appear on the original test results.

RMJ Mentor
RMJ
Posted

g/L, a weight per volume unit, would be a very unusual unit for a celiac specific (EMA) test.  

1.24 g/L would be in the normal range if this was a TOTAL IgA test.

Best to ask the doctor.

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