Those Crazy Villi...

[Emme999]

I spoke with the pathologist/doctor today who viewed my endoscopy biopsies. She was *really* nice and even showed them to me under a microscope. It was really cool. The only un-cool part was that I couldn't see any villi! I said, "Where are they??" She just kind of grinned and said, "Exactly." Then she showed me a textbook picture of what they are supposed to look like. Mine were all sorts of funked up. It was kind of sad.

Anyway, she gave me a copy of the pathology report and it said the following:

COMMENTS:

Sections of the small bowel biopsy show extensive villous blunting ranging from moderate villous blunting to completely flat atrophic mucosa. Focal crypt hyperplasia is also identified. Only a rare intact villous structure is noted. Although a rare neutrophilic cryptitis is noted, the predominant inflammatory cell infiltrate is that of a mild to moderate mucosal intraepithelial lymphocytosis on the order of 25-40 lymphocytes per 100.

What the #*@^$??

If anyone can decifer the lymphojargon, please do!

Thanks,

- Michelle

[Carriefaith]

Don't worry I don't think it's anything bad, they are just "medical/scientific terms" for alterations in the intestinal wall due to gluten damage in celiacs. Open Original Shared Link

I believe that people with celiac who are eating gluten or just starting the diet have a lot of those crypts and intraepithelial lymphocytes. They should go away or there should be less of them with time.

25-40 lymphocytes per 100

those numbers should go down once you have been on the diet for a while.

I had to learn about some of this stuff for a seminar. I was giving a seminar on genetically modified foods and found that a certain kind of genetically modified potato (which wasn't put on the market thankfully) caused the same sort of intestinal damage (crypts and intraepithelial lymphocytes) in rats as in people with celiac disease. So I had to learn all of those crazy terms and then present them

[psawyer]

COMMENTS:

Sections of the small bowel biopsy show extensive villous blunting ranging from moderate villous blunting to completely flat atrophic mucosa...  Only a rare intact villous structure is noted.

This is a clear, definite diagnosis of celiac disease. My endoscopy results were very similar. Given that, I would not worry too much about decoding the other obscure language. Many other conditions can be presented when celiac is present and gluten is still being ingested.

As I understand it, the lympho... language refers to the state of the immune system. Since celiac disease is an autoimmune disease, the presence of gluten in the diet triggers an elevated immune response. If you are newly gluten-free, I would not be concerned. If you still show hightened iummune activity levels after several months on the gluten-free diet, then I would look for possible other causes (or gluten still being ingested from an unrecognized source).

[lovegrov]

As others have said, it simply means you're showing an autoimmune response and you have celiac. The "lympho" language does not mean you have cancer, if that's what you're thinking.

richard