Published online Jan 14, 2024. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v30.i2.146
Peer-review started: August 22, 2023
First decision: November 20, 2023
Revised: November 28, 2023
Accepted: December 25, 2023
Article in press: December 25, 2023
Published online: January 14, 2024
Processing time: 143 Days and 7.9 Hours
Eosinophilic gastroenteritis (EGE) is a rare, chronic and recurrent disease with abnormal eosinophilic infiltration in gastrointestinal tract. Disease relapse and glucocorticoid dependence remain notable problems.
Few studies had illuminated the prognosis of EGE and risk factors for disease relapse. By exploring prognostic factors by baseline clinical data, we may identify patients who are more vulnerable for disease relapse at diagnosis and offer them individualized treatment.
To describe the clinical characteristics of EGE and possible predictive factors for disease relapse based on long-term follow-up.
This retrospective cohort study enrolled 55 EGE patients (2013-2022, Peking Union Medical College Hospital) and analyzed their clinical records. Kaplan-Meier analysis, Log-Rank test and Cox regression analysis were conducted to reveal the risk factors for long-term prognosis.
In our cohort, EGE showed a female predominance (56.4%) and its median onset age was 38 years old. Abdominal pain (89.1%) was most commonly seen. 78.2% of patients received glucocorticoid treatment in whom elevated serum immunoglobin E (IgE) at diagnosis (86.8% vs 50.0%, P = 0.022) and descending duodenum involvement (62.8% vs 27.3%, P = 0.046) were more frequently seen. The median follow-up time was 67 mo, during which 31 patients (56.4%) suffered from at least one flares of disease relapse. Six prognostic factors were figured out, including age at diagnosis < 40 years (hazard ratio (HR) 2.0408, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.0082-4.1312, P = 0.044), body mass index > 24 kg/m2 (HR 0.3922, 95%CI: 0.1916-0.8027, P = 0.014), disease duration from symptom onset to diagnosis > 3.5 mo (HR 2.4725, 95%CI: 1.220-5.0110, P = 0.011), vomiting (HR 3.1259, 95%CI: 1.5246-6.4093, P = 0.001), total serum IgE > 300 KU/L at diagnosis (HR 0.2773, 95%CI: 0.1204-0.6384, P = 0.022) and glucocorticoid treatment (HR 6.1434, 95%CI: 2.8446-13.2676, P = 0.003).
We identified younger onset age, longer disease course, vomiting and glucocorticoid treatment to be risk factors for disease relapse, whereas higher body mass index and total-IgE level at baseline to be protective.
In future research, we tend to conduct multi-center prospective study to verify and improve our prognostic model and further explore more accurate biomarkers for disease relapse based on serum proteomics and intestinal microbiomes.