Eosinophilic esophagitis: studies on an emerging disease

Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is a recently recognized disease. In adults, key symptoms include dysphagia and food impaction. The disease can affect any person at any age, however the typical EoE patient seen in the gastroenterology department is a (young) man with atopic co-morbidity. Over the past years, an increasing number of studies have provided more insights into the epidemiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment of EoE. In this thesis, we presented a number of studies, in which we investigated the epidemiology of EoE (Part 1), the pathophysiology and treatment (Part 2), and the value of endoscopy and histopathology for the care of EoE patients (Part 3).