Recurrent Blood Eosinophilia in Ulcerative Colitis Is Associated with Severe Disease and Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis
Digestive Diseases and Sciences, 08/08/2012
Clinical Article
Barrie A et al. – Eosinophilia–associated ulcerative colitis (UC) is a subgroup of IBD associated with severe colitis and Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC).
Methods- The authors studied a prospective registry of 1,176 IBD patients followed in a tertiary referral center.
- Patients who developed eosinophilia at any time were identified by electronic medical record query.
- They performed a chart review case–control study comparing patients with recurrent eosinophilia versus randomly selected disease-matched patients with no history of eosinophilia.
- Histological analysis was performed on selected cases and controls.
- Eosinophilia at any time was more prevalent in ulcerative colitis (UC) patients than Crohn’s disease patients (22.2 versus 12.7 %), as was recurrent eosinophilia (3.4 versus 0.7 %).
- UC patients with recurrent eosinophilia were predominantly male compared with the control UC population (81.3 versus 46.9 %) and had higher rates of colectomy for either medically refractory disease or dysplasia/cancer than control UC patients (56.3 versus 15.6 %).
- Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) occurred in 37.5 % of UC patients with recurrent eosinophilia compared with only 3.1 % in the UC controls.
- Histological analysis of random diagnostic samples from UC patients with recurrent eosinophilia demonstrated a normal eosinophil pattern as seen in the control UC population.
