CVID Enteropathy Is Difficult To Treat and Shows a Heterogeneous Histopathology

Enteropathy is a non-infectious complication in Common Variable Immune Deficiency (CVID) associated with increased morbidity and mortality. We characterized this group of CVID enteropathy (CVID-E) patients and investigated the effectiveness of immunosuppressive treatments on its clinical course.

We identified patients with CVID-E in two academic teaching hospitals and obtained informed consents. Using electronic patient health care records, we retrospectively collected clinical information in the national Primary immunodeficiency disorder database until 01-2023.

We included 39 patients with CVID-E. Bronchiectasis (69.2%) and lymphoproliferation (46.1%) were the most frequent co-occurring symptoms. The most common endoscopy findings concerned inflammation (72.2%) and erythema (69.4%); The most prevalent histopathologic findings were IBD-like inflammation (55.6%), indiscriminate chronic inflammation (47.2%) and indiscriminate active inflammation (38.9%). We assessed 88 events of treatment response in the 25 treated patients. Overall treatment response was poor, however there were 31 events of remission observed, ranging from partial to sustained remission. Of these 26 were the result of tumor necrosis factor inhibitors (TNFi) or thiopurines, either as monotherapy or in combination with other immunosuppressive treatment. 10 patients achieved complete remission.

In this study, we describe a cohort of CVID-E patients including related comorbidity, clinical course and response to therapy. CVID-E patients frequently develop other, sometimes severe comorbidities. Our study confirms the alleged heterogeneity regarding endoscopic and histopathological findings, and in one third of patients even multiple distinct abnormalities co-occurred in the same biopsy. We found azathioprine and/or TNFi to be the most effective current treatment.