Dr David R. Stukus on the Increase in Eosinophilic Esophagitis

David R. Stukus, MD, FACAAI, of Nationwide Children's Hospital and The Ohio State University College of Medicine, and a board member of the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, discusses the rise of eosinophilic esophagitis.

Transcript

Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), despite being considered a rare disease, is going up in prevalence among children and adults, especially males. What could be some reasons behind this discrepancy?

It’s probably in large part due to improved recognition and diagnostic criteria. This is something that really didn't have a consensus definition until 15 years ago. So now as more people are recognizing it and know how to diagnose it, I think you're just going to naturally increase the number of people diagnosed with it. So that's probably part of it. Part of it also may just be that we still don't fully understand why some people develop EoE or allergies. There's a genetic predisposition that tends to tie in with various types of exposures; we’re seeing increased rise of food allergy and other allergic conditions, so EoE probably just falls along in that category as well. So, no easy answers, but it's nice to see more people dedicating their research to it and better understanding this this condition.