Gastrointestinal eosinophil-mediated disorders and their treatment.

Eosinophilic esophagitis has become a diagnosis familiar to allergists and immunologists who treat pediatric patients presenting with complaints of recurrent vomiting, feeding difficulty, abdominal pain, dysphagia, and food impaction. Over the past 3 years, published research has addressed several clinically important issues, including incidence among special patient populations, adult patients and familial cases, diagnostic features, natural history and complications, therapies with topical steroids, and pathogenesis with distinct genetic markers of the disorder.