Duodenitis In Children, Symptoms And Treatment

2024 Author: Josephine Shorter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 21:43

Symptoms and treatment of duodenitis in children

Chronic duodenitis rarely occurs in the form of an isolated disease. In most cases, in patients, the defeat of the duodenum is accompanied by pathological changes in the gastric mucosa.

Duodenitis in children is most often associated with nutritional defects (violation of the diet, dry eating, malnutrition). The disease can be accompanied by peptic ulcer disease, liver disease, biliary tract, inflammation of the pancreas or intestines. In addition, duodenitis can develop against the background of giardiasis, pulmonary, cardiovascular, renal and allergic diseases. Risk factors include convulsions, intestinal atony, duodenostasis, unfavorable heredity, frequent respiratory diseases, and chronic tonsillitis.

Symptoms of duodenitis in children

The symptoms of duodenitis in children can be very diverse. The main ones are pain in the abdominal region of varying intensity and duration, which are most often localized in the epigastrium or right hypochondrium. In most cases, pain occurs before eating or after eating, less often at night. Most often, patients complain of nausea, in rare cases - belching, heartburn or vomiting. Sometimes patients may experience constipation.

During an exacerbation, patients complain of loss of strength, headache, impaired appetite and sleep. On examination, there is a blurred pain in the right half of the epigastric region, as well as in the right and left hypochondrium. Recurrences of duodenitis are observed more often in autumn or spring.

Given the variety of symptoms of duodenitis in children, when making a diagnosis, it is necessary to carry out differential diagnosis with gastric ulcer, chronic gastritis, pathology of the biliary tract and pancreas.

The most common complications are duodenostasis, peristalsis disorders, stenosis, perigastritis, as well as bleeding, which can be quite abundant, resembling ulcerative pathology.

To clarify the diagnosis, patients undergo duodenofibroscopy with a directed biopsy, and also do an x-ray. As part of the first examination, duodenitis manifests itself in the form of inflammation, edema, and scar tissue changes. Localization of the pathological process is most often observed in the area of the duodenal bulb.

An X-ray made with the use of artificial hypotension allows detecting a violation of the relief and contours of the mucous membrane and revealing bowel deformation.

Targeted duodenobiopsy makes it possible to detect edema, cell infiltration, and changes in the villi. An auxiliary method is duodenal intubation. An increase in the activity of alkaline phosphatase, as well as enterokinase in intestinal juice, revealed in the study, may also indicate the initial stage of the disease. With a more pronounced structural change, the enzyme activity decreases.

Treatment of duodenitis in children

Treatment of duodenitis in children is carried out in a comprehensive manner, taking into account the individual characteristics of the patient. Therapy depends on the clinic of the disease and has similar principles to the treatment of chronic gastritis and duodenal ulcers.

Article author: Mochalov Pavel Alexandrovich | d. m. n. therapist

Education: Moscow Medical Institute. IM Sechenov, specialty - "General Medicine" in 1991, in 1993 "Occupational Diseases", in 1996 "Therapy".