<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

Two papers written by the late Prof Ferguson and others in Edinburgh
should give encouragement to anyone like me with a negative biopsy.

Way back in 1993 they looked at 217 consecutive patients referred for
jejunal biopsy. The biopsies were normal in 38 of these, and had minor
abnormalities in the other 3.

They found 41 of the patients to have antibodies to gliaden in gut
secretions, and put 7 of these on a gfd.  6 of them improved.  So in
this study nearly 20% of negative biopsies had possible markers of
coeliac disease.

The group went on to study a further 77 patients also referred for
jejunal biopsy which was normal. Intestinal antibodies to gluten
together with increased gut lymphocytes and other markers of coeliac
disease were studied.  41% of these had one or more markers of coeliac
disease.

So what this means is that if you have a negative biopsy you still could
have a 41% chance of some other markers of coeliac disease being present
- What is really needed is a test which detects the disease before all
the damage is done to the gut lining, rather than afterwards when
recovery will take many months or even years.

(To anyone interested the papers were published in Gastroenterology
vol104 and Gut vol 35.)