Children with existing allergies should be screened for an emerging, severe chronic food allergy

Children with known skin, food and respiratory allergies should be screened for an emerging, chronic food allergy called eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), a painful inflammation of the esophagus, the food tube between the mouth and stomach. Pediatric allergists who analyzed a very large group of children from birth to adolescence say that EoE should be considered a later component of the ‘allergic march’ — the natural history in which many children successively develop a series of allergies.