%0 Journal Article
%T Accumulation of Mast Cells in the Lesions and Effects of Antiallergic Drugs on the Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease
%A Motohiro Kurosawa
%A Hiroichi Nagai
%J Ulcers
%D 2013
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2013/714807
%X The pathomechanism of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has not yet been fully demonstrated. However, it is well known that mast cells are present in the gastrointestinal tract, suggesting that mast cells may take part in it. So, we investigated the number of mast cells in IBD, such as ulcerative colitis (UC) and eosinophilic colitis, and showed that the number of mast cells was increased in the inflammatory lesions. We also presented a case of UC which was treated successfully with an antiallergic drug, tranilast. Furthermore, possible new approaches to treating the disease with immunomodulators including suplatast are introduced. However, our investigations were performed with a limited number of patients with IBD, and additional further studies are required to confirm the findings. 1. Introduction Many reports identified changes in mast cells in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) including ulcerative colitis (UC). UC is chronic inflammatory bowel disorder which shows evidence of activation of the immune system of the colorectum, with exacerbations and remissions [1¨C5]. However, contradicting data have also been reported regarding the distribution of mast cells in the intestinal mucosa of patients with UC; namely, the number was increased in some studies [6, 7], unchanged [8], and decreased in others [9]. One reason for the discrepancy in mast cell distribution in colonic lesions may be due to differences in the methods used for tissue preparation, such as tissue fixation, staining techniques, and methods of cell counting as described by Craig et al. [10]. In fact, conventional staining methods are inferior to the sensitive immunohistochemical techniques that use antibodies to specific mast cell proteinase such as tryptase, and some immunohistochemical studies have noted that one of the features of UC among IBDs may be a marked increase of mast cells in the affected mucosa [11, 12]. Eosinophilic colitis (EC), a subtype of eosinophilic gastroenteritis, is a disease characterized by peripheral blood eosinophilia and a prominent eosinophilic infiltration in the intestinal mucosa. Some reports suggested possible involvement of food allergy as the mechanism of the disease [13, 14]. Bischoff [15] reported that eosinophils and mast cells seemed to be mutually related in the allergic reaction in digestive tract mucosa. Although mast cells are thought to be critical effector cells in gastrointestinal allergic reactions [16¨C18], the role of mast cells in EC still remains unclear. In this paper, we investigated the number of mast cells in UC and EC using
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ulcers/2013/714807/