Question About Biopsy Diagnosis

[Greengal]

Hello all,

I'm hoping someone here can clear something up for me. I've read that an endoscopy with biopsy of the small bowel is the gold standard for diagnosing Celiac. I've had two blood tests which both came back negative, and so I suggested the endoscopy to my doctor because so far they haven't come up with any other ideas and my symptoms are consistent with Celiac, and he said it wasn't necessary because when they did the colonoscopy, they got a sample from the small bowel. Does this sound right? I thought it had to be from the upper part of the small bowel which I doubt they got via colonoscopy.

Any info would be great,

Thanks,

Kelly

[Mydnyt]

Hi Kelly,

I had a colonoscopy when they were trying to diagnose IBS - came back as no sign. My new doc did some blood tests which came back with some fairly extreme readings, and suggested I needed a endoscopy to check the small intestine. I mentioned the colonoscopy, and he said pretty much what you did - the biopsy needs to be taken from the upper end of the intestine.

You can always just tell yr doctor to do the test... But would you want to have the test done with 2 neg blood results? I know a lot of people have positive blood but negative biopsy, but had anyone had the opposite?

[tarnalberry]

Absolutely. A recent study (you can find it on celiac.com's frontpage) noted that blood tests are not as accurate as reported in literature when there is not already a fair amount of intestinal damage. Of course, you still have to hope that the doctor biopsies the right places!

[lovegrov]

He cannot get the samples he needs during a colonoscopy. You have to have an endoscopy.

richard

[CarolynM]

You could go the stool test or gene test route.