Evaluation of esophageal distensibility in eosinophilic esophagitis: an update and comparison of functional lumen imaging probe analytic methods.

BACKGROUND: Distensibility evaluation of the esophageal body using the functional lumen imaging probe (FLIP) offers an objective measure to characterize patients with eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), though this analysis may be limited by unrecognized catheter movement and esophageal contractility. The aims of this study were to report novel FLIP analytic methods of esophageal distensibility measurement in EoE and to assess the effect of contractility.

METHODS: Nine healthy controls (six female; ages 20-49) and 20 EoE patients (four female; ages 19-64; grouped by degree of distension-mediated contractility identified on FLIP) were evaluated with a 16-cm FLIP device during step-wise balloon distension during upper endoscopy. A distensibility plateau (DP) was generated using multiple methods to identify the narrowest esophageal body diameter: (i) wavelet decomposition (WD), (ii) maximal diameter (MD), and (iii) FLIP Analytics software.

KEY RESULTS: Distensibility was reduced in EoE patients compared with controls using the WD (p = 0.002) and MD (p = 0.001) methods; a trend was detected using the FLIP Analytics method (p = 0.055). Significant intra-subject differences were detected between methods among both patients and controls (p-values <0.001 to 0.025); the difference was more pronounced among subjects with a greater degree of contractility. DP was <19 mm among 7/9 controls with FLIP Analytics, 6/9 controls with WD, and 0/9 controls using the MD method.

CONCLUSIONS & INFERENCES: Distension-mediated contractility affects distensibility measurement with the FLIP. Using software-based algorithms, particularly with a method that identifies the maximal-achieved diameters (MD), may improve objective distensibility measurement for clinical research and practice.