2023-08-30 17:15:12
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 the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Biodonostia, Ikerbasque and the Hospital General Tomelloso, the first three entities in the Basque Country and the last one in Ciudad Real, in Spain, 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 people without the disease (control group), recruited from the General Hospital Tomelloso and the 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 people. 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%.
Ainara Castellanos Rubio and Maialen Sebastian de la Cruz, of the research team. (Photo: UPV/EHU)
The author team of this work hopes that these promising results will serve as a basis to facilitate 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.
The study is titled “A novel, non-invasive method to diagnose active eosinophilic esophagitis, combining clinical data and oral cavity RNA levels”. And it has been published in the academic journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. (Source: UPV/EHU)
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