Is measurement of serum antigliadin antibodies in patients with suspected IgA nephropathy worthwhile?

[Secondary IgA-nephropathy in gastroenterological diseases]

IgA-nephropathy is the most common primary chronic glomerulonephritis worldwide. Beside the primary IgA-nephropathy (IgA-nephropathy with an unknown origin), there are more and more cases, which are associated with diseases of other organs. Although the causality is often not obvious, these forms are called secondary IgA-nephropathy. In this study, the authors cover only the secondary forms of IgA-nephropathy with relation to gastroenterology in a broader sense that includes the liver. They would like to draw the attention to the necessity of analyzing also the associate occurrence of gastrointestinal diseases (principally liver diseases, coeliac disease, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis) in patients with IgA-nephropathy, as well. They think that it would be expedient to organize a nationwide clinical analysis that would search the frequency of occurrence of IgA-nephropathy in the above mentioned gastrointestinal diseases.