Budesonide Is Effective in Patients With Eosinophilic Oesophagitis

Eosinophilic oesophagitis (EoE) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the oesophagus characterized by dense tissue eosinophilia; This condition typically effects younger people, and presents with difficulty swallowing (dysphagia) and recurrent bouts of food "getting stuck" (food bolus obstruction).

A recently published trail evaluated the effect of oral budesonide (1 mg twice daily for 15 days) in patients with EoE. Pretreatment and posttreatment disease activity was assessed clinically, at Gastroscopy, and using biopsies (counting the number of eosinophils per high-power field [hpf] = oesophageal eosinophil load).

Results

A 15-day course of therapy significantly decreased the number of eosinophils in the oesophageal epithelium in patients given budesonide (from 68.2 to 5.5 eosinophils/hpf; P < .0001) but not in the placebo group (from 62.3 to 56.5 eosinophils/hpf; P = .48). Dysphagia scores significantly improved among patients given budesonide compared with those given placebo (5.61 vs 2.22; P < .0001). No serious adverse events were observed.

Conclusions

A 15-day course of treatment with budesonide is well tolerated and highly effective in inducing a histologic and clinical remission in adolescent and adult patients with active EoE. Budesonide can be made up into an oral viscous solution using 5 sachets of splenda (sucralose) mixed with 1mg nebule of budesonide. Published

November issue "Gastroenterology"