Epidemiology of Celiac Disease in Cantabria, Spain

Background/Objectives: Celiac disease is an enteropathy caused by a systemic autoimmune process of genetic predisposition to the ingestion of gluten. It is a public health problem worldwide because there are often long delays between the onset of symptoms and diagnosis. Our main objective is to describe the prevalence of celiac disease in our community, Cantabria, located in northern Spain. We start with an analytical database, with data collected from 2007 to 2016. We describe the possible differences in terms of age, sex, and geographic areas; family aggregation; and disease-associated comorbidities. Methods: The data for this research were obtained from a database from the Immunology Laboratory at the Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital (HUMV), a reference laboratory for the entire Autonomous Community of Cantabria, located in northern Spain. The data were obtained from the analytical results collected from this database from January 2007 to January 2016, within this Community of 566,898 inhabitants in 2016. The data collected in this database consist of immunological tests, HLA-DQ2 or HLA-DQ8 antigenic patterns, focused on diagnosing celiac disease in the community of Cantabria, which have been positive during this period of time. Results: The prevalence of celiac disease in Cantabria is 0.14%. The mean age of diagnosis was 17.92 years. A higher percentage has been observed in the female sex and in children. Conclusions: The present study shows that celiac disease in the community of Cantabria is underdiagnosed. It is an important fact to consider when evaluating patients with symptoms that could be related to this disease to avoid increased use of medical consultations until a diagnosis is reached, in addition to avoiding long-term complications with this disease.