Introduction: The study of intraepithelial lymphocytes (IEL) by flow cytometry is a useful tool in the diagnosis of coeliac disease (CD). Previous data showed that an increase in %TCRγδ+ and decrease of %CD3- IEL constitute a typical CD cytometric pattern with a specificity of 100%. However, there are no data regarding whether there are differences in the %TCRγδ+ related to sex, age, titers of serology, and degree of histological lesion.
Study aims: To confirm the high diagnostic accuracy of the coeliac cytometric patterns. To determine if there are differences between sex, age, serology titers, and histological lesion grade.
Results: We selected all patients who fulfilled "4 of 5" rule for CD diagnosis (n = 169). There were no differences in %TCRγδ+ between sexes (p = 0.909), age groups (p = 0.986), serology titers (p = 0.53) and histological lesion grades (p = 0.41). The diagnostic accuracy of complete CD cytometric pattern was: specificity 100%, sensitivity 82%, PPV 100%, NPV 47%.
Conclusion: We confirmed, in a validation cohort, the high diagnostic accuracy of complete CD pattern irrespective of sex, age, serology titers, and grade of mucosal lesion.
Keywords: age; coeliac disease; flow cytometry; intraepithelial lymphocytes TCRγδ+; lesion grade; sex.