SAN DIEGO, Jan. 18 Eosinophilic esophagitis, a disease first described in children 20 years ago, has shown a rising incidence in children and adults, says a U.S. study.Eosinophilic esophagitis, known as EE, is an inflammatory condition of the esophagus, with symptoms including vomiting, heartburn and difficulty swallowing.Researchers at the University of California-San Diego School of Medicine and Rady Children's Hospital and Health Center show that the disease causes many of the same kinds of tissue changes seen in pediatric asthma. Their research may lead to new drug targets for EE, which appears to be allergy-driven in some patients.In patients with EE, the disease leads to scarring and narrowing of the esophagus so that food can't readily pass through it.We set out to find whether the kind of structural changes seen in other long-standing inflammatory diseases like childhood asthma also occur in EE, said Dr. Seema Aceves of the San Diego School of Medicine. We found fibrosis, or scarring, as well as remodeling of the esophagus in pediatric EE patients which is similar to airway remodeling found in patients with asthma.The findings are reported in the Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology.Copyright 2007 by UPI
