Esophageal lesions in children with symptoms of dyspepsia

Abstract

Introduction. Symptoms of gastro esophageal reflux disease are noticed in 2–7% of children. Manifestations of this disease may be limited to symptoms (e.g., heartburn, regurgitation) or have more complicate complex, such as erosive esophagitis, esophageal strictures or Barrett’s esophagus.
 Study purpose. To study the prevalence of esophagitis in school-age children with symptoms of dyspepsia. 
 Materials and methods. The retrospective study included 7–18 years 2935 children patients aged with symptoms of dyspepsia. The presence of endoscopic signs of distal catarrhal esophagitis and erosions (epithelialized and non-epithelialized) was assessed; in the case of non-epithelialized erosions, the stage of esophagitis according to the Los Angeles classification was taken into account (1998).
 Results. The prevalence of endoscopic signs of esophagitis among 7 to 17 years 11 months children with symptoms of dyspepsia was 1858/2935 (63.3%). Changes in the type of epithelialized erosions of the esophagus were detected in 593/2935 (20.2%), non-epithelialized erosions in 222/2935 (7.6%) children. Overall, erosive changes in the esophagus were noted in 815/2935 (27.8%) children with symptoms of dyspepsia. Erosive changes in the esophagus are more often observed in boys. The proportion of child­ren with erosive esophagitis is the same in all age groups. Among patients with non-epithelialized erosions, according to the Los Angeles classification stage A was established in 149/222 (67.1%), stage B — in 63/222 (28.4%), stage C — in 8/222 (3.5%), in 2/222 (0.9%) single ulcers of the esophagus were identified
 Conclusion. There is a high prevalence of esophagitis in school-age children with symptoms of dyspepsia, the frequency of erosive esophagitis, taking into account epithelialized and non-epithelialized erosions, was 27.8%, the frequency of non-epithelialized erosions — 7.6%.