Low TTG‐IgA associated with isolated bulb pathology in pediatric celiac disease: Implications in a no‐biopsy approach era
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: Duodenal involvement in celiac disease (CD) can be patchy, with a subset of patients demonstrating histopathological involvement limited to the bulb. This study evaluates whether bulb-restricted CD represents a distinct subgroup associated with lower titers of immunoglobulin A anti-tissue transglutaminase antibody (TTG-IgA) compared to distal duodenal CD in pediatric patients. Additionally, we assess the impact of a no-biopsy approach for pediatric CD with TTG-IgA ≥10 times the upper limit of normal (TTG-IgA ≥10× ULN) on the relative frequency of bulb-restricted CD among biopsied patients. METHODS: Incident pediatric CD cases were identified retrospectively between 2017 and 2022. A no-biopsy approach for TTG-IgA ≥10× ULN was locally implemented in 2020. Serum TTG-IgA was categorized as negative, equivocal, positive TTG-IgA <10× ULN, and positive TTG-IgA≥ 10× ULN. Biopsies were classified by Marsh score and site of involvement. RESULTS: Of the 405 cases included (mean age = 9.6 years, female-to-male ratio = 2.1:1), bulb-restricted CD was present in 7.4%. TTG-IgA was negative or equivocal in 60.0% of bulb-restricted CD, compared to 5.3% of distal duodenal CD (odds ratio [OR] = 26.6; 95% confidence interval [CI] = [11.1-63.3], p < 0.001). Notably, no bulb-restricted CD cases attained TTG-IgA ≥10× ULN, compared to 48.5% of distal duodenal CD. Following local implementation of the no-biopsy approach for TTG-IgA ≥10× ULN, the relative percentage of bulb-restricted CD significantly increased from 4.6% to 12.4% (OR = 2.9, 95% CI = [1.4-6.4], p = 0.004). CONCLUSION: Pediatric CD with isolated bulb pathology presents with lower serum TTG-IgA titers than cases with distal duodenal involvement. Implementation of the no-biopsy approach increased the relative proportion of bulb-limited CD, as these cases were not associated with TTG-IgA ≥10× ULN.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".