Trends in celiac disease research

BACKGROUND To improve diagnosis and treatment of celiac disease (CD), research efforts are being made in many different areas. However, the focus, trend, and direction of such efforts require clarity, so that future efforts and directions can be appropriately planned. METHOD In this study, MEDLINE was used to search for trends in CD research. The keyword 'celiac disease' and its variants were searched in tandem with keywords commonly associated with CD. This search was done for each year from 1960 to 2013. Year of first instance of the associated keyword, linear regression coefficient, and trend in terms of the slope of the regression line were tabulated. For perspective, the same keywords were searched in tandem with 'inflammatory bowel disease' (IBD). RESULTS CD appeared in the medical literature prior to 1960, and IBD first appeared in 1964. However, IBD overtook CD in terms of the number of research papers published per year, beginning in 1988. Keywords with strong positive trends (r(2)>0.7) in association with CD were: 'diagnosis', 'gluten', 'serology', 'autoimmune', 'treatment', 'gluten-free diet', 'endoscopy', 'villous atrophy', 'wasting', 'inflammation', and 'microbiome'. The keyword 'malabsorption' had the sole strong negative trend in association with CD. Keywords with strong positive trends (r(2)>0.7) in association with IBD also had strong positive association with CD: 'autoimmune', 'treatment, 'inflammation', and 'microbiome'. CONCLUSIONS The MEDLINE search approach is helpful to show first instance, association, and trend of keywords that are affiliated with CD in published biomedical research, and to compare CD research trends with those of other diseases.