Neonatal enteropathies: defining the causes of protracted diarrhea of infancy.
The underlying causes of chronic diarrhea beginning early in life are increasingly well defined. Infectious and post-infectious enteropathies and food sensitive/allergic enteropathy account for the majority of cases. Recent attention has focused on characterizing defined entities, which cause protracted diarrhea in infants and young children. Disorders of intestinal ion transport usually present at birth following a pregnancy complicated by polyhydramnios. Intestinal mucosal biopsies show normal architect with intact villus-crypt axis. Neonatal enteropathies, by contrast, are characterized by blunting of the villi. These include microvillus inclusion disease, tufting enteropathy, autoimmune enteropathy and IPEX syndrome - and it is these conditions that are the subject of the current review.
Sherman
Philip M
PM
Research Institute, Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. sherman@sickkids.ca
Mitchell
David J
DJ
Cutz
Ernest
E
D001327:Autoimmune Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000276:immunology / Q000473:pathology; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003968:Diarrhea, Infantile / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000276:immunology / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D005512:Food Hypersensitivity; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D002479:Inclusion Bodies / Q000473:pathology; D007223:Infant; D007228:Infant Nutrition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000276:immunology / Q000473:pathology; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007413:Intestinal Mucosa / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008871:Microvilli / Q000473:pathology; D012720:Severity of Illness Index