Prevalence of celiac disease in primary care: the need for its own code

Background Celiac disease (CD) is an autoimmune chronic enteropathy of the small intestine caused by exposure to gluten in genetically predisposed individuals. CD is not easy to diagnose due to its unspecific symptomatology, especially in adults, a diagnosed/undiagnosed ratio of 1:7 is estimated. CD does not have its own code in the International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC) but it is coded under code D99 “Disease digestive system, other”, which hinders diagnosis, intervention and research. The aim of this study is to investigate the prevalence of CD in Aragon, Spain, using the information available from Primary Care, as well as to discuss the difficulties involved in determining prevalence of CD from data collected at this level of medical intervention.