[Recurrent abdominal pain at the Pediatric Gastroenterology Outpatient Clinic].
OBJECTIVE
To analyze the features of pediatric patients with recurrent abdominal pain, identify the main ethiologic diagnoses and their clinical and laboratorial differences.


METHODS
We studied the medical records from 167 children attended at a pediatric gastroenterology outpatient clinic. After analysis of the entire sample, the patients were divided in groups according to their diagnosis. Those patients with more than one diagnosis were arranged into a subgroup named multiple diagnosis. Statistical analysis was performed with Kruskall-Wallis test for numeric variables and chi-square test for non-numeric variables.


RESULTS
The patients age ranged from 3 to 17 years (median 9), the number of consultations ranged from 1 to 16 (median 2) and the period of attendance ranged from 1 to 37 months (median 4). The pain was mainly periumbilical (35.8%) and crampy-like (76.1%). The main diagnoses found were chronic intestinal constipation (58.6%), intestinal parasitosis (22.8%), and peptic disease (20.4%). In 34 patients (20.3%) we were not able to establish the diagnosis. Among the groups, there was statistically significant difference in age (p=0.00003), number of consultations (p=0.00004), period of attendance (p=0.00001), kind of pain (p=0.0003), intestinal habit (p=0.0002), stool features (p=0.0001), and evolution (p=0.0006).


CONCLUSIONS
The authors conclude that finding organic disease in patients with recurrent abdominal pain is much more common than it was expected. The pediatrician always has to consider the possibility of multifactorial origin for these patients' complaints.
Lunardi
C A
CA
Serviço de Pediatria Clínica, Hospital do Servidor Público Estadual Francisco Morato de Oliveira, IAMSPE, SP.
Azevedo
L A
LA
Azevedo
L C
LC