AUTOIMMUNE DISEASES OF DIGESTIVE SYSTEM

Abstract

Autoimmune diseases of digestive system refer to pathological conditions, caused by autoimmune mechanisms, and their etiology remains unknown. This is a group of relatively rare diseases, however, during the last years a marked tendency towards the raise in incidence and prevalence is observed, which led to an increase in number of clinical investigations on etiology, pathogenesis, and, accordingly, development of new diagnostic methods and therapies. Results of such trials shown, for example, that the pathogenesis of chronic cholestatic liver diseases is associated with nuclear receptors function, while the main etiological and pathogenic factor of inflammatory bowel diseases represents gut microbiota. Despite new achievements in autoimmune diseases of digestive system research, therapies are low effective and are accompanied by a huge number of adverse events. The fact that these diseases may lead to malignant tumors is also worth noting. For example, patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis have a 160 times higher risk of cholangiocellular carcinoma, while 10–14% of patients with celiac disease may develop malignancies of esophagus, small and large intestine. Thus, these diseases require further investigation with a purpose of more accurate diagnostic methods for the detection of disease at early stages and new effective and safe therapies development.