Endomysial antibodies or anti‐tissue transglutaminase type 2 IgA antibodies as a confirmatory test in children with celiac disease

The no-biopsy approach to diagnose celiac disease (CD), introduced in the 2012 European Society for Gastroenterology and Hepatology and Nutrition guidelines, requires an anti-endomysial antibody (EMA) confirmatory serology test following a high-positive immunoglobulin A anti-tissue transglutaminase-2 (anti-TG2) antibody ≥10 times the upper limit of normal (ULN). The aim of this retrospective study is to compare EMA positivity and high-positive anti-TG2 in patients who had their confirmatory test within 2 months of their first high-positive anti-TG2 test. Among 933 patients who had high-positive anti-TG2 serology more than 10 times the ULN in their first sample, all had both high-positive anti-TG2 and positive EMA, most of them with very high EMA titers (99.6%) in their confirmatory test. In conclusion, we suggest that a repeated anti-TG2 test can replace the EMA test as the confirmatory serology test for the confirmation of the diagnosis of CD in the no-biopsy approach.