Eosinophilic disorders are diseases caused by hyperactivities of eosinophil, a type of white blood cell. Eosinophils are seen elevated in several conditions like in drug allergy, infection especially parasite and fungi, some hematologic diseases like in lymphoma, hypereosinophilic syndrome, allergic / immunologic disorders and in some endocrinologic disorders as in hyperadrenalism. When eosinophil infiltrates certain organs, it causes damage of that organ by secreting toxic chemicals at that place. Eosinophil can invade the brain, skin, GI tract, kidney, and the lung. Overpopulation of eosinophil has been seen in several diseases including asthma, atopic dermatitis, eosinophilic esophagitis, nasal polyposis, hypereosinophylic syndrome, Churg-Strauss syndrome, and COPD. The most common diseases we see with this condition are the ones associate with the GI system causing difficulty swallowing or dysphagia, abdominal pain, diarrhea, blood in stool… like in eosinophilic esophagitis and eosinophilic gastroenteritis or colitis. Acid reflux and food allergy are most commonly associated with this condition. In severe allergic asthma, it is thought that the allergic inflammation process that induces airway inflammation, thus inducing asthma, also induces the proliferation of esoninophils. When this occurs, asthma symptoms are often hard to control, likely due to the potency of toxic granules dumping out by eosinophils to the airway. Therefore in this case, blocking this type of cells from proliferation by using monoclonal antibodies often see a drastic improvement of asthma symptoms within weeks after the first treatment in contrast to months to see improvement in controling allergic inflammation alone.
For more information about gastrointestinal diseases due to eosinophilic disorders and food allergies please see the video from Mayo Clinic Below.
If you or your family have or suspect of having this condition, please stop by to discuss with us to see how we could help. Below are services and procedures we offer at Texas Allergy for this condition.
- Food Allergy Test
- Food Patch Test
- Environment allergy test and treatment
- Food elimination procedure
- Elemental diet, an amino acid based diet in severe condition
- Nucala® or Fasenra® for severe asthma with eosinophil proliferation
