Celiac Disease
Celiac disease is an immune-mediated reaction to gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley. In people with celiac disease, eating gluten triggers an immune response causing inflammation and damage to the finger-like projections of the small intestine. In children, celiac disease often goes undiagnosed and untreated for years, which puts them at risk for malnutrition, poor growth and weight gain, and many other gastrointestinal symptoms. Children with celiac disease need specialized care like that found at NewYork-Presbyterian, where our pediatric gastroenterologists provide the most advanced care to children and adolescents with this condition. Our comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach considers each child’s unique needs and provides you and your child with the treatment and support needed not only to manage celiac disease but to thrive.
The NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center’s Celiac Disease Center is one of only a handful of centers in the United States that focus on celiac disease. Here, experts explore how the condition affects the body through clinical research. Our experts are helping to pave the way toward new treatments for celiac disease.
About Our Program
At NewYork-Presbyterian’s two renowned children’s hospitals, NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital and NewYork Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital, multidisciplinary teams of specialists provide advanced and comprehensive care to children with celiac disease.
Your child's team includes pediatric gastroenterologists and pediatric allergy and immunology specialists, along with a team of knowledgeable registered dieticians. Together, our team will swiftly diagnose your child’s condition and customize an effective plan of treatment to help them improve as quickly as possible.
- We use the latest diagnostic methods including labs and endoscopic evaluation to achieve an accurate diagnosis of celiac disease, which can sometimes be difficult to detect.
- Should your child’s celiac screen come back positive, we will likely recommend an endoscopic examination of your child’s small intestine, during which we would take biopsies (tissue samples) to evaluate for characteristics of the disease. This procedure is considered the gold standard for diagnosing celiac disease.
- If celiac disease is diagnosed, you and your child will undergo extensive counseling from an expert registered dietician who will help your family plan and adhere to a gluten-free diet.
With a strict gluten-free diet and ongoing monitoring of your child’s symptoms by a pediatric gastroenterologist, we can reverse the inflammation and damage to your child’s intestines and ensure a healthier future for your child.