Abstract
Gastroesophageal reflux (GER) is frequently found in association with asthma. Successful
control of GER in these patients may improve in their asthma symptoms. The present
retrospective analysis was undertaken to find out the incidence of GER in asthmatic
children not responding to routine antiasthmatic medications and to find out if there
is a clinical correlation between the symptoms of GER and scintigraphic evidence of
GER in these patients. A total of 126 children with a mean age of 2.31 years and range
6 months to 6 years were evaluated. The children were divided into two groups. Group
I (n=100) consisted of children with asthma but no clinical symptoms of GER. Group II
(n=26) consisted of those children with asthma and clinical symptoms of GER. Radionuclide
scintigraphy was performed with 100–200 μCi (3.7–7.4 MBq) of Tc99m-sulphur colloid.
All 33 out of 126 (26%) children had GER on scintigraphy. In Group I, only 23 (23%)
had reflux while in Group II, 10 (38.5%) had reflux. In conclusion, esophageal scintiscanning
can be used to detect GER in asthmatic children refractory to routine antiasthmatic
medication irrespective of the presence or absence of symptoms suggestive of GER.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Received:
March 10,
2002
Identification
Copyright
© 2003 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
