Effects of age of diagnosis and dietary compliance on growth parameters of patients with celiac disease.

INTRODUCTION: The objective of this study was to evaluate the relation between age at diagnosis and compliance to gluten free diet (GFD) on growth in children with celiac disease and the factors that influenced compliance to GFD.

POPULATION AND METHODS: Celiac disease (CD) patients with villous atrophy followed in our hospital between January 2015 and January 2017, were included. They were classified according to diagnosis age and GFD compliance. Patients' anthropometric characteristics at diagnosis and follow-up were compared.

RESULTS: There were 73 patients with 10.4 ± 4.5 years of average age, 35 (47.9%) patients had a short stature at diagnosis, the ages of patients who had short stature (7.8 ± 4.2 years) were higher than those who did not (5.1 ± 4.3 years) (p= 0.005). At diagnosis, 33 (45.2%) patients were aged ≤6 years, 40 (54.8%) were aged >6 years. The height and weight z-scores of patients who were diagnosed at >6 years of age were significantly lower than those who were diagnosed ≤6 years of age both at diagnosis (p= 0.01 and 0.04) and at last control (p= 0.001 and 0.001), respectively. Forty-five (61.6%) patients were fully compliant with GFD. In comparison of anthropometric data in terms of GFD compliance, the increase in BMI and weight z-score in the fully compliant group was found to be significantly higher when compared with the other group.

CONCLUSIONS: Delay in CD diagnosis negatively affected both the height and weight and other growth parameters. GFD compliance positively affected the patients' all growth parameters, especially weight and BMI z-score.