Eosinophilic gastroenteritis is a diagnosis to be entertained whenever a patient had abdominal complaints accompanied by striking peripheral eosinophilia. A definitive diagnosis is of greater importance in this illness, since undiagnosed cases often undergo needless exploratory surgery. An infant seen at 2 years, 10 months of age with abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting was found to have a white blood cell count of 50,000/cu mm with 54% eosinophils and eosinophilic ascites. An antral tissue biopsy yielded a diagnosis of eosinophilic gastroenteritis after many studies had been made to exclude other diagnoses. Treatment with intermittent courses of prednisone kept the patient relatively asymptomatic over the period of 20 years during which she remained under our care. Immunologic studies shed no light on the etiology of this patient's disorder. The literature dealing with diffuse, infiltrative eosinophilic gastroenteritis is reviewed.
Analyses of serum lipids of children with cystic fibrosis (CF) have indicated a deficiency in essential fatty acids (EFA). In view of a report that intravenous administration of soybean oil emulsions normalized sweat sodium values in CF children, we studied the effects of orally administered essential fatty acids (as corn oil) for one year. Some improvement was noted in all patients, but no one consistent factor predominated. However, arachidonic acid, which was found only in trace amounts or was absent in sera of all children with CF before the clinical trial, was increased significantly in the sera after the oral administration of EFA for one year. Other findings included a significant decrease in sweat sodium and T3 in most patients.
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