INTRAEPITHELIAL LYMPHOCYTE COUNTS IN SMALL INTESTINAL BIOPSIES FROM CHILDREN WITH DIARRHOEA

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Abstract
Small intestinal biopsies from children with celiac disease, acute gastroenteritis, failure to thrive and giardiasis were investigated to find out if a high intraepithelial lymphocyte count was a feature specific to celiac disease, or whether it was always associated with partial or subtotal villous atrophy. The normal range for childrens'' intraepithelial lymphocyte counts was similar to that for adults (around 6-40 lymphocytes/100 epithelial cells); that counts were high in celiac disease, but also in some children with giardiasis or with failure to thrive in whom the jejunal biopsy appeared otherwise normal, and that intraepithelial lymphocyte counts were normal in acute gastroenteritis even when there was partial villous atrophy with increased lamina propria lymphoid cell infiltrate. This measurement of small intestinal lymphocyte infiltration may be of diagnostic value in differentiating the diarrhea of food intolerance from infectious diarrheas in young children.