Aiming for a shorter time to diagnosis: pediatric eosinophilic esophagitis in British Columbia
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Allergy, Asthma & Clinical Immunology
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Open Access
Aiming for a shorter time to diagnosis: pediatric eosinophilic esophagitis in British Columbia Jocelyn Jia1,2* , Edmond S. Chan2,3, Vishal Avinashi2,4, Elaine Hsu2,3, Hin Hin Ko5,6 and Lianne Soller2,3
Abstract Longer time to diagnosis for patients with eosinophilic esophagitis can lead to adverse patient outcomes, but the length of diagnostic delay has not been quantified for patients with eosinophilic esophagitis in Canada. Our study defines the time to diagnosis (TTD) for pediatric patients with eosinophilic esophagitis in British Columbia and identifies factors that predict increased time to diagnosis. The median TTD was 21 months (1.75 years; IQR = 7, 45) with a median age at EoE diagnosis of 105 months (8.75 years; IQR = 44, 156). Caucasians experienced significantly longer TTD compared to other ethnicities (24 months (IQR = 7, 52) and 12 months (IQR = 4.5, 23) respectively, p = 0.008). Caucasian ethnicity (p = 0.037) and older age at the time of diagnosis (p = 0.006) predicted increased TTD. Our model explained 7.9% (Adjusted R2 = 0.079) of the total variance for our cohort. Keywords: Eosinophilic esophagitis, Pediatric, Diagnosis, Delay Main text Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is a chronic allergic condition increasing in incidence worldwide, though epidemiological data describing EoE in Canada are lacking [1]. Symptoms of EoE are often nonspecific and can differ by age [1–3], making timely and accurate diagnosis a challenge. No studies have explored time to diagnosis (TTD) for EoE in Canada. Our goals were to describe TTD and factors associated with TTD for children enrolled in the EoE Registry at British Columbia Children’s Hospital (BCCH). This study was approved by the University of British Columbia Children’s and Women’s Research Ethics Board. BCCH is the sole pediatric tertiary care facility in British Columbia, and is responsible for most pediatric EoE patients in the province. Patients seen in the multidisciplinary EoE clinic—comprised of one pediatric allergist, one pediatric gastroenterologist, and *Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
one dietician—at BCCH were eligible for the current study if they were: (1)
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