Medical authorities are investigating coeliac testing kits at the State hospital after a number of patients received “shocking” test results, Times of Malta has learnt.
A Health Ministry spokeswoman said the laboratory at Mater Dei Hospital was looking into why a number of patients had received routine coeliac test results that “on some occasions” did not tally with their clinical situation.
Patients diagnosed with coeliac disease – an auto-immune disorder that results in severe gluten intolerance – on Friday said routine tests were giving worrying results that did not tally with second opinions.
“When I went to conduct a routine test my result was 10 times higher than it should be, that would have meant I was severely undernourished and that could have even led to cancer, so it was very alarming – I was worried,” a patient who asked not to be named said.
When I went to conduct a routine test my result was 10 times higher than it should be
She told the Times of Malta how she then heard of a number of other patients who had received similarly worrying results and decided to get tested at a private hospital.
“The results didn’t tally at all. I went from getting a result that meant I was quite sick, to another that showed I was fine,” she said.
She was not alone as the Coeliac Association of Malta received a list of complaints from patients who said their routine tests had either come back worryingly high or had not tallied with other tests taken at private healthcare facilities.
Contacted on Friday, a member of the association said only that the matter been reported to the authorities who were investigating.
The Health Ministry, meanwhile, explained that the sensitivity of different types of testing kits varied and could be behind the discrepancy in results.
There had not been any malfunction or wrongly calibrated instrument found in the hospital linked to these results, the ministry spokeswoman said.
Meanwhile, writing on its website, the association informed members that despite the reassurances that it had received from health authorities that the issue had been resolved, there seemed to be “a growing number of coeliac patients whose 2018 blood tests were once again showing abnormally higher antibody levels”.
“Highly disturbing is the fact that there were instances where coeliac patients carried out the same tests privately immediately after the Mater Dei results were made available and the privately conducted blood tests gave a completely different result,” the association wrote.
The association also urged coeliacs to check their latest blood test results and to see how these compared to those carried out in the years preceding 2017, particularly if they scrupulously adhered to a gluten free diet.
If a patient diagnosed coeliac disease maintains a gluten free diet, they should receive healthy results.
However, if they do eat gluten, this will result in a deterioration in the lining of the small intestine, which could lead to serious complications.
If test results are high, patients normally undergo an invasive procedure to examine the lining of the intestine. Sources said the majority of biopsies had confirmed the original test results, indicating the other patients had unnecessarily undergone the invasive procedure.