Dermatitis herpetiformis and small intestinal lesion--no strict association in german patients

Dermatitis herpetiformis (DH) has been reported to be associated with various degrees of intestinal villous atrophy in 19 to 68 percent of the cases studied. This was true particularly in British and American populations. The present investigation deals with morphological and functional characteristics of small intestinal mucosa in a group of German DH patients (n=16): No case of villous atrophy could be detected, whereas interepithelial lymphocytes were shown to be slightly but significantly elevated. Intestinal disaccharidase activities were not statistically different from those of healthy control subjects, and oral lactose tolerance tests were normal in each of 8 patients tested. Genetical and immunological differences between our DH patients and those studied by British and American authors may be responsible for the basically different results as to "dermatogenic enteropathy".