We present a 17-month-old girl with rapidly progressive unwillingness to sit, stand, play, and walk. Furthermore, she lacked appetite, vomited, lost weight, and had an iron deficiency. Physical examination revealed a cachectic, irritable girl with a distended abdomen, dystrophic legs with paraparesis, disturbed sensibility, and areflexia. An MRI scan revealed abnormal high signal intensity on T2-weighted images in the cord on the thoracic level, without cerebral abnormalities, indicating transverse myelitis (TM). Laboratory investigations revealed elevated immunoglobulin A antibodies against gliadin (1980.0 kU/L; normal, 0–10.1 kU/L) and tissue transglutaminase (110.0 kU/L; normal, 0–10.1 kU/L). Gastroscopy revealed villous atrophy in the duodenal biopsies and lymphocytic gastritis according to Marsh IIIb, compatible with celiac disease (CD). After the start of a gluten free diet and methylprednisolone, she recovered completely. To our knowledge, this is the first pediatric case of TM as manifestation of CD. We suggest that all children with TM or other neurologic manifestations of unknown origin should be screened for CD.
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March 2017
Case Report|
March 01 2017
Transverse Myelitis as Manifestation of Celiac Disease in a Toddler
Hilde Krom, MD;
aDepartment of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Emma Children’s Hospital, Amsterdam, Netherlands;
Address correspondence to Hilde Krom, MD, Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Emma Children’s Hospital, Box 22660, 1100 DD, Amsterdam, Netherlands. E-mail: h.krom@amc.uva.nl
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Fleur Sprangers, MD;
Fleur Sprangers, MD
bFlevoziekenhuis, Almere, Netherlands; and
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René van den Berg, MD;
René van den Berg, MD
cDepartment of Radiology, Academic Medical Centre, Amsterdam, Netherlands
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Marc Alexander Benninga, MD;
Marc Alexander Benninga, MD
aDepartment of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Emma Children’s Hospital, Amsterdam, Netherlands;
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Angelika Kindermann, MD
Angelika Kindermann, MD
aDepartment of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Emma Children’s Hospital, Amsterdam, Netherlands;
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Address correspondence to Hilde Krom, MD, Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Emma Children’s Hospital, Box 22660, 1100 DD, Amsterdam, Netherlands. E-mail: h.krom@amc.uva.nl
POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The authors have indicated they have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.
FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE: The authors have indicated they have no financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose.
Pediatrics (2017) 139 (3): e20161381.
Article history
Accepted:
October 24 2016
Citation
Hilde Krom, Fleur Sprangers, René van den Berg, Marc Alexander Benninga, Angelika Kindermann; Transverse Myelitis as Manifestation of Celiac Disease in a Toddler. Pediatrics March 2017; 139 (3): e20161381. 10.1542/peds.2016-1381
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