Bucks resident welcomes developments in a new test for coeliac disease
The current test means patients have to eat gluten despite discomfort and pain
Patients across Buckinghamshire will welcome the move towards a new test.
Currently, patients being tested for Coeliac Disease have to eat a substantial amount of gluten for six weeks in the run up to the test.
This is a difficult process for everyone who has it, as a symptom of Coeliac as well as other conditions is pain and discomfort from consuming gluten.
Charlotte is a Buckinghamshire resident who has had a Coeliac Test:
"I have a great doctor who talked it all through with me but when she said I had to eat gluten it rang alarm bells.
"I am quite lucky I don't have really bad side effects from eating gluten, some people cant even have any without throwing up and that test could be quite traumatic for them.
"For me I get really bad stomach cramps that no pain killer can ease, the only way it goes away is lying down.
"But the effects of eating gluten can last so for my 2 weeks of eating gluten, it can last a month.
"I now know I am gluten intolerant and I don't have Coeliac Disease so this test process impacts a lot of people.
"It's not something doctors do without needing to but it is so difficult for every patient who has to go through what is a horrific experience."
In a study they looked at the DNA sequence from all T lymphocytes in small intestinal samples, to see if it was possible to predict who has the disease.
The scientists found that with a machine learning approach to analysing all this DNA sequence, if they just sequenced all the T lymphocytes in each patient sample, they could group together all people who had coeliac disease.
This is because they had very similar sequences, compared with the people that did not have the condition.
Corresponding author Dr Elizabeth Soilleux, from the Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge, told the PA news agency:
"So then if you have an unknown sample, you take all the DNA sequences from your unknown patient, and you chuck it into that mix and you say 'is it more like the coeliac people, or is it more like the ones who haven't got coeliac disease in terms of his T lymphocyte DNA sequences?
"The most important thing was we took samples from people who had coeliac disease who had not eaten gluten for six months. T his test could work even if people hadn't eaten gluten.'
"We believe we could spare them the gluten eating, but they may have to have an endoscopy.''