Eosinophilic Enteritis with Ascites in a Patient with Overlap Syndrome

Gastrointestinal involvement is frequent in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Eosinophilic gastroenteritis, however, has only rarely been described in rheumatological conditions, despite its reported connection to autoimmune diseases, such as hypereosinophilic syndrome, vasculitides, and systemicmastoidosis. It presents typically with abdominal pain and diarrhea and is only exceptionally associated with ascites. Diagnosis can be problematic, as several other clinical conditions (malignancies, infection/tuberculosis, and inflammatory bowel diseases) have to be ruled out. It is basically a nonsurgical disease, with excellent recovery on conservative treatment. We report the rare case of a young woman with overlap syndrome who presented with abdominal pain and ascites. The diagnosis of eosinophilic enteritis wasmade based on clinical, radiological, and laboratory criteria. The patient was treated with corticosteroids with excellent response. Copyright © 2009 Spyros Aslanidis et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 1.