Eosinophilic esophagitis is a disease characterized by chronic inflammation of the esophagus. This inflammation is due to the fact that eosinophils (a type of white blood cells) infiltrate the mucosa and this causes difficulty in swallowing. Although it is a rare disease, its prevalence is increasing. Until now, its diagnosis was made by analyzing several biopsies taken at different points in the esophagus. A test that is considered invasive and very annoying for patients. Therefore, the development of non-invasive tests has become a challenge.
An investigation carried out between Ikerbasque, the UPV/EHU, Biodonostia and the Tomelloso General Hospital (Ciudad Real) started from the hypothesis that, since the mucosa of the mouth is located near the esophagus, it was possible that it could be used to find useful biomarkers, with the added advantage that obtaining samples from the mouth is very simple.
To find these biomarkers, 68 genes that may be involved in eosonophilic esophagitis were selected and their activity was analyzed in patients with active esophagitis, patients in remission, and healthy controls, recruited from the Tomelloso General Hospital and Donostia University Hospital. Of those 68 genes, 29 could be detected in samples from the mouth, and eight of those genes were shown to be potential biomarkers. Thus, these genes were analyzed in additional patients and three of them showed differences in their activity between patients and healthy controls. The use of these three genes in combination with clinical data, such as sex or the presence of atopy, has a predictive capacity of 95%.
The authors of this paper hope that these promising results will serve as a basis for facilitating the diagnosis of eosonophilic esophagitis by reducing the number of invasive tests. In the future, new work will be necessary to validate the results obtained and to explore the possibility of using this test to differentiate eosonophilic esophagitis from other diseases of the esophagus.
Referencie:
Sebastian-delaCruz et al. 2023. A novel, non-invasive method to diagnose active eosinophilic esophagitis, combining clinical data and oral cavity RNA levels. Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, in press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cgh.2023.07.023
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