Small-bowel capsule endoscopy in patients with gastrointestinal food allergy.
BACKGROUND
Food allergy may present with a plethora of gastrointestinal and extraintestinal symptoms such as abdominal pain, diarrhea, cardiocirculatory symptoms, cutaneous reactions, or rhinitis. Macropathological lesions like lymphofollicular hyperplasia and erosive or ulcerative lesions have seldom been described in gastroscopy and colonoscopy previously.


METHODS
Fifteen patients presenting with unspecific abdominal symptoms in which food allergy was detected in due course were included. During the examination process, those patients showed various indications for small-bowel capsule endoscopy, such as weight loss and anemia.


RESULTS
Fourteen (93.3%) of the 15 small-bowel capsule endoscopies could be assessed, showing nonerosive lesions such as erythema, swelling, and lymphoid hyperplasia in 8 patients (57.1%) and erosive lesions such as aphthoid lesions, erosions, and petechiae in 4 patients (28.6%) with food allergy.


CONCLUSIONS
In 15 patients with confirmed food allergy and after exclusion of other diseases, 12 (85.7%) showed various unspecific nonerosive or erosive mucosal lesions within the small bowel, resulting, however, partially in grave consequences such as anemia. Lymphoid hyperplasia was the most prominent finding in 7 patients (50%), albeit infectious disease had been excluded. Anemia improved within 1 year after adequate antiallergic treatment.
Department of Medicine I, University of Erlangen, Germany. Alexander.Hagel@uk-erlangen.de
A F
AF
Hagel
T M
TM
de Rossi
Y
Y
Zopf
A S
AS
Lindner
W
W
Dauth
M F
MF
Neurath
M
M
Raithel
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000485:Allergens / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000276:immunology; D053704:Capsule Endoscopy / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D005512:Food Hypersensitivity / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D005767:Gastrointestinal Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007413:Intestinal Mucosa / Q000473:pathology; D007421:Intestine, Small / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D055815:Young Adult
D000485:Allergens