Eosinophilic digestive disease (EDD) and allergic bronchial asthma; two diseases or expression of one disease in two systems?

Abstract

Eosinophilic digestive disease (EDD) includes a broad spectrum of clinical presentations due to eosinophilic inflammation involving anywhere from the esophagus to the rectum. The heterogeneity in the clinical presentations of EDD is determined by the site and depth of eosinophilic infiltration. The sites of inflammation determine the nomenclature for EDD. The most well characterized of these, eosinophilic esophagitis (EE), eosinophilic gastroenteritis (EG), and eosinophilic colitis or enterocolitis. While the depth of esosinophilic infiltration through the three main layers (mucosa, musculosa and serosa) determines the prominent clinical manifestation. The recent advances in gastrointestinal endoscopy and the increasing awareness and diagnosis of EDD, in my viewpoint, can be of help to add to our understanding of the heterogeneous clinical syndrome under the broad title bronchial asthma. Here I present my viewpoint that EDD and the allergic bronchial asthma can be regarded as two clinical expressions of one disease in two different but related anatomical systems.