Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is an inflammatory disease affecting children at an increasing rate leading to failure to thrive, esophageal stricturing, and the need for long term healthcare. Off-label use of topical steroids is the mainstay of treatment, but a high failure rate and clinical concerns of palatability have necessitated physicians using unstudied grocery items as excipients. The goal of this proposal is to investigate the properties of current empiric therapies and use that knowledge to develop a microscale polymer disc (microdiscs) designed to improve residence time of drug therapy in the esophagus. Microdiscs are designed to prolong drug residence time in the esophagus and have controlled-release properties to increase mucosal exposure to drug, thus delivering drug directly to the target site of EoE. The prolonged residence time of the mucoadhesive discs will be expected to improve bioavailability which decreases patient exposure to steroids, decreases costs, and opens new possibilities for other pharmaceutical treatments with fewer side effects to be delivered in the same manner.

Public Health Relevance

Eosinophilic esophagitis is a chronic, inflammatory disease affecting thousands of children each year leading to food aversion, failure to thrive, esophageal stricturing, and long term morbidity. Current treatment options for children have been empirically developed by clinicians and have inadequate success rates. This proposal will improve treatment of this disease by quantitatively measuring properties of current therapies and then improving upon them using biocompatible, established drug delivery methods.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Small Research Grants (R03)
Project #
1R03HD098604-01
Application #
9723843
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1)
Program Officer
Giacoia, George
Project Start
2019-04-01
Project End
2021-03-31
Budget Start
2019-04-01
Budget End
2020-03-31
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2019
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Children's Mercy Hosp (Kansas City, MO)
Department
Type
DUNS #
073067480
City
Kansas City
State
MO
Country
United States
Zip Code
64108