New here - advice needed please!

[barton444]

Hi, is a positive gastric parietal cell antibody test plus ongoing anaemia enough for a diagnosis of pernicious anaemia, even if serum B12 is in range?

[fbirder]

Not really.

GPC antibodies are found in around 10% of people without PA, becoming more commmon with age.

You don’t say what type of anaemia you have. It can be caused by low B12, but also by low iron, low folate and some other things.

[Gambit62 Administrator]

the type of anaemia caused by B12 deficiency (and folate deficiency) is macrocytic - in which red blood cells are rounder and larger than they should be - typically high MCV and high MCH.

Iron deficiency leads to microcytic anaemia in which red blood cells are smaller than normal.

It is possible to have both and depending on which takes precedence cells may, on average, be normal, or larger or smaller - and in this case the RDW (red cell distribution width is likely to be high).

As fbirder says - GPCA test isn't used so much these days because it tends to give false positives - so isn't that good for demonstrating that PA is present