UEG's content platform for gastroenterology education bringing recordings, courses, guidelines, and more together in one place.

Re-live UEG Week 2026 on Gutflix Gut Guide online What's new on Gutflix

Trending on Gutflix

Rate for better recommendations!

Your feedback helps us show you more of what you like and less of what you dislike!

More of this!

We will show you more similar content.

Not for me!

We won't suggest this again.

Bookmark!

Save this content for later!

New to myUEG? Create an account! Log In with myUEG account

UEG Poster

New

Standard Poster

This content is part of Gutflix. Log in with your myUEG account, or create one free, to watch it.

Not sure what you can access? Learn more about account types.

SEASONAL VARIABILITY OF FOOD BOLUS IMPACTION IN EOSINOPHILIC ESOPHAGITIS: MYTH OR REALITY?

maria parmigiani 1,2,3, Elena Grueso 4,5,6, Ana Margarita Cabrera-Martínez 2, Emilio Jose Laserna-Mendieta 2,4,7, Victoria Úbeda Vargas 2, Rocio Juarez Tosina 8, Alfredo J. Lucendo 4,9,10

Affiliations

1 Fondazione Poliambulanza Istituto Ospedaliero, Brescia, Italy

2 Hospital General de Tomelloso, Tomelloso, Spain

3 Università Cattolica Del Sacro Cuore, Roma, Roma, Italy

4 Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Hepáticas y Digestivas (CIBERehd), Instituto de Salud Carlos III., Madrid, Spain

5 Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Castilla-La Mancha (IDISCAM), Toledo, Spain

6 Hospital General de Tomelloso

7 Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Castilla-La Mancha (IDISC

8 Hospital La Mancha Centro, Alcazar de San Juan, Spain

9 Hospital General de Tomelloso, Madrid, Spain

10 Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Princesa, Madrid, Spain

Summary

AI Generated

Summary is not available for this content yet.

Download PDF

Was this helpful?

Thanks for your feedback.

This summary was generated by an AI large language model based on the content transcript. It is for informational purposes only and should not be considered a substitute for clinical judgment. Always rely on your professional expertise and the full clinical context when making clinical decisions.

Abstract

Introduction

Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is an atopy-related chronic inflammatory disease whose activity may be influenced by environmental aeroallergen exposure. Prior low quality evidence has suggested a seasonal pattern in EoE diagnosis [1], but whether food bolus impactions specifically display seasonal variability remains controversial. We aimed to investigate the seasonal distribution of food bolus impaction events in a registry-based EoE cohort and to explore potential associations with regional pollen exposure.

Aims & Methods

We analysed prospective data from patients recruited at Tomelloso General Hospital (Spain) registered in EOE CONNECT [2,3] (snapshot November 2025). Food bolus impaction events with a known month and year were extracted and assigned to meteorological seasons (winter: Dec–Feb; spring: Mar–May; summer: Jun–Aug; autumn: Sep–Nov), and classified as pre- or post-diagnosis. Seasonal variability was assessed by chi-square goodness-of-fit against a uniform distribution and Edwards' test for unimodal cyclic trends. Differences between pre- and post-diagnosis seasonal distributions were evaluated by chi-square test of independence. Aeroallergen correlation analyses used daily pollen counts from two regional monitoring stations: AEROCAM (Toledo, 2019–2023) [4] and the Comunidad de Madrid open-data network (Aranjuez, 2010–2025) [5], with same-month Spearman rank correlations and Poisson regression between monthly pollen concentration and monthly impaction count per taxon.

Results

Among 448 registered patients, 170 (37.9%) had ≥1 dated food bolus impaction event, yielding 217 analysed events (146 pre-diagnosis, 71 post-diagnosis). Seasonal distribution is shown in the table. Edwards' test identified a statistically significant unimodal annual cycle (χ²=11.82, df=2, p=0.003), with a peak in July and relative amplitude of 0.117. The pattern was consistent across pre- and post-diagnosis events (p=0.361), arguing against a clinical-scheduling artefact. In the aeroallergen analysis, same-month spring–summer pollen was positively correlated with monthly impaction counts (Poaceae ρ=+0.18, p=0.020; Olea ρ=+0.18, p=0.017; Quercus ρ=+0.15, p=0.037), whereas Cupressaceae showed a significant inverse association (Poisson IRR=0.84, p=0.014), consistent with its winter peak.

Season	Events (n)	%	Expected (uniform, n)	p-value
Winter	47	21.7	54.2
Spring	49	22.6	54.2
Summer	68	31.3	54.2
Autumn	53	24.4	54.2
Total	217	100.0	217
Chi-square goodness-of-fit			df=3	0.172
Edwards' test (cyclic trend)			df=2	0.003
Pre- vs. post-diagnosis			df=3	0.361

Conclusion

Food bolus impactions in this large, single-center cohort displayed a significant unimodal seasonal pattern peaking in July, independent of the diagnostic phase. The concordance with spring–summer aeroallergen exposure supports a biological rather than artifactual basis for EoE seasonal variability, suggesting that pollen-driven mucosal inflammation may modulate impaction risk. Seasonality in EoE appears to be a reality, not a myth.

References

1. Lucendo AJ, et al. Allergy. 2015;70:1640–1650.
2. Lucendo AJ, Santander C, et al. Therap Adv Gastroenterol. 2022;15:17562848221074204.
3. Navarro P, Laserna-Mendieta EJ, et al. United European Gastroenterol J. 2022;10:507–517.
4. Pérez-Badia R, et al. Ann Agric Environ Med. 2011;18:99–111.
5. Comunidad de Madrid. Histórico de mediciones de polen [dataset]. datos.comunidad.madrid. Licence CC-BY 4.0; 2010–2025.

Conference

UEG Week Barcelona 2026

Topics

Oesophagus

Submission format

Abstract

Session

Risk factors and treatment of eosinophilic esophagitis (Posters)

Citation

2026: United European Gastroenterology Journal 2026; 14 (S1)

Published

2026

More Like This:

HEPATITIS B SCREENING, ANTIVIRAL PROPHYLAXIS, AND REACTIVATION RISK IN RITUXIMAB-TREATED PATIENTS: A 17-YEAR POPULATION-BASED COHORT STUDY

Rawi Hazzan

Towards prevention: A trinational birth cohort study to unravel modifiable triggers of inflammatory bowel disease

Karl Marild

Incidental oesophageal squamous neoplasia at gastroscopy: How to proceed?

Stefan Seewald

Hereditary tumour syndromes in transition

Robert Hüneburg

Best of UEG Week 2024 with Mary Phillips and Ulrike Beilenhoff on "Nursing"

Ulrike Beilenhoff

SEASONAL VARIABILITY OF FOOD BOLUS IMPACTION IN EOSINOPHILIC ESOPHAGITIS: MYTH OR REALITY?

Alfredo J. Lucendo