Aim: To evaluate the clinical utility of multi-antibody strategies in the diagnosis of coeliac disease (CD), the new quantitative Polycheck immunoassays were analysed.
Methods: Polycheck Celiac Panels (PCPs) are immunoenzyme screening assays for the quantitative measurement of coeliac-specific immunoglobulin class G (IgG) or class A (IgA) in serum. Lines of relevant antigens are coated together with five IgG or IgA standard lines used for the standard curve as positive control. PCP IgA consists of human recombinant human tissue transglutaminase (tTG) and deamidated gliadin peptides (DGP) as targets to detect IgA antibodies. PCP IgG consists of tTG, DGP and IF (intrinsic factor) antigens to detect antibodies in IgG class. PCPs were performed on 50 CD patients, including 6 cases with selective IgA deficiency, and 50 non-coeliac controls. CD diagnosis was performed according to the ESPGHAN recommendations: The presence of specific anti-tTG-IgA or anti-DGP-IgG (in the case of IgA deficiency) antibodies, typical histopathological changes in duodenal mucosa described in Marsh-Oberhüber classification as at least grade 2. The diagnosis of the majority of the control subjects was functional gastrointestinal disorders. The PCP results were compared with reference EliA Celikey.
Results: The usage of PCPs led to the correct identification of all CD patients. In our study, PCPs showed 100% agreement with the histopathological results. PCP IgA test showed a 98% concordance and correlated positively (R = 0.651, P = 0.0014) with EliA Celikey test. The highest specificity and positive predictive value (both 100%) were observed for the detection of Polycheck anti-tTG-IgA antibodies. The highest sensitivity and negative predictive value (both 100%) were achieved by Polycheck anti-DGP-IgG antibody detection. The best performance (98% sensitivity and negative predictive value, 100% specificity and positive predictive value, diagnostic accuracy - AU ROC 99%) was observed for the strategy of using both PCP IgA and IgG and determining positive outcomes of the test with two or more coeliac-specific antibodies detected. The majority of coeliac patients had multiple antibodies. All four antibodies were detected in 7 (14%) cases, 19 children (38%) were positive for three antibodies and 23 (46%) were positive for two antibodies.
Conclusion: The present study showed that detection of coeliac-specific antibodies with multi-antibody PCPs is effective and efficacious in the diagnosis of CD.
Keywords: Coeliac disease; Deamidated gliadin peptides; Multi-antibody tests; Polycheck celiac panels; Tissue transglutaminase.