Celiac disease in Iranian irritable bowel syndrome patients; a systematic review and meta-analysis

AIM: The present study was conducted to evaluate the prevalence, clinical symptoms and pathological findings of celiac disease (CD) in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patients in Iran. BACKGROUND: Several studies show high prevalence of CD in IBS patients, but the results are contradictory. METHODS: The present study was conducted based on MOOSE protocol and results were reported according to PRISMA guideline. The search was done using international online databases (Scopus, PubMed, Science Direct, Cochrane Library, Embase, and Web of Science), national databases and Google Scholar search engine. RESULTS: The pooled prevalence of CD in 2,367 Iranian IBS patients was estimated to be 6.13% (95%CI: 4.11-9.05). The prevalence of CD in men and women with IBS was 4.28% (95% CI: 2.45-7.37) and 7.19% (95% CI: 4.51-11.28), respectively. The serological prevalence of anti tTG-IgA (11 studies with 2901 IBS patients) and AGA-IgG (4 studies with 936 IBS patients) was estimated to be 5.35% (95%CI: 3.60-7.89) and 6.35% (95%CI: 2.05-18.03), respectively. The clinical symptoms of CD among IBS patients included predominant diarrhea (47.87% [95%CI: 22.46-74.43]), predominant constipation (17.34% [95%CI: 9.17-30.35]), and alternative diarrhea and constipation (27.84% [95%CI: 11.57-53.23]). According to pathological findings based on marsh classification, the prevalence of CD at stages 1, 2 and 3 were 30.89% (95%CI: 13.25-56.68), 36.56% (95%CI: 21.74-54.45) and 52.87% (95%CI: 14.48-88.13), respectively. CONCLUSION: In the present meta-analysis, we observed a high prevalence for CD among Iranian IBS patients, which is higher than global estimates. Examination of all IBS patients in terms of CD seems to be necessary, but cost-effectiveness should be considered.