S935 Comparison of Eosinophilic Esophagitis Disease Severity Based on Hispanic Ethnicity: A Case Control Study

Introduction: Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is a chronic T helper 2 cell-mediated, allergic disease associated with esophageal eosinophilia and symptoms of esophageal dysfunction. The Index of Severity for Eosinophilic Esophagitis (I-SEE) is a newly developed tool to assess disease severity that is still being validated for clinical use. Previous data suggests that Hispanic patients are diagnosed with EoE less frequently and could have less severe EoE disease then non-Hispanic patients. We compared Hispanic versus non-Hispanic patients using the I-SEE score to evaluate if EoE severity differs according to Hispanic ethnicity. Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort analysis on patients with a diagnosis of EoE at Mayo Clinic Arizona from 2011-2025. Ethnicity was categorized as: Hispanic or non-Hispanic. Chi-squared test was utilized for categorical variables and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test was utilized for comparison of continuous variables. A multivariate analysis was performed to adjust for potential confounders. Results: One thousand three hundred seventeen patients were identified with our inclusion criteria: 26 Hispanic, 9 Asian, 3 Black, and 1,175 White. Thirty-four White patients were selected by random number generator. On review of I-SEE and EoE endoscopic reference scores (EoE-EREFS), Hispanics had similar scores. The Hispanic patients were less likely to be on active treatment and more commonly reporting nausea as their predominant symptoms. After multivariate analysis, Hispanic patients had narrower strictures. Conclusion: EoE is an emerging disease with the I-SEE score being developed to provide a standardized way to describe disease severity. We aimed to evaluate disease severity in Hispanic patients compared to non-Hispanic patients using the I-SEE score. In this single-center study, we showed that Hispanic and non-Hispanic patients have similar I-SEE and EoE-EREFS scores. Hispanic patients were less likely to be on treatment, had higher eosinophil counts, and more severe strictures in comparison to non-Hispanics. Further knowledge is needed to understand barriers to treatment control in Hispanic patients with EoE.