Abstract
Abdominal tuberculosis is one of the most common causes of prolonged hospital admission in pediatric gastroenterology unit. While we are investigating children with abdominal tuberculosis, we noticed that they have positive serology for celiac disease, so we tried to find a correlation between abdominal TB and glutenopathy. Ten children with abdominal TB were enrolled in a pilot study dividing them in two groups, one group was tried with gluten free diet, and the other group on normal diet. Both groups started on antituberculous for one year. All children had small intestinal biopsy at the beginning, six months later and at one year, (they enrolled on gluten free diet according to their histopathological finding on the small intestinal biopsy) and they have their celiac serology at the same time in a form oflgA & IgG antigliadin antibodies and anti TTG. The group on gluten free diet challenged with gluten after six months .They had remarkable quick recovery with no relapse after challenging them with gluten. While the group on normal diet took longer to recover and some of them continue to have abnormal serology and minor mucosal changes.