Prevalence and Clinicopathologic Pattern of Primary Eosinophilic Colitis in Symptomatic Patients.

The presence of eosinophils in the different segments of the digestive tract is common and seen in diverse clinical scenarios. Eosinophilic gastrointestinal diseases (EGIDs) are a group of disorders characterized by symptoms of gastrointestinal dysfunction, caused by the inflammatory infiltration of eosinophils and include eosinophilic esophagi-tis, eosinophilic gastroenteritis, and eosinophilic colitis.

Primary eosinophilic colitis (PEC) is defined as an inflammatory disease of unknown etiology that mainly manifests as abdominal pain and diarrhea, segmental or diffuse infiltration of eosinophils in the mucosa of the colon, for which other possible causes have been ruled out .

The usual endoscopic findings tend to be nonspecific, and even though PEC is considered a rare disease, its prevalence is unknown. Evaluation of the colonic mucosa is very helpful in detecting inflammatory bowel disease, ischemic colitis, microscopic colitis ,neoplasia, and intraepithelial infections.

The endoscopic appearance of the colon is normal, or almost normal, in some of those diseases, and thus they can go by undetected