[Utility and safety endoscopic digestive procedure in pediatric age]

The aim of this study is to verify the utility and safety of endoscopic procedures in the evaluation of children with clinically-significant gastrointestinal symptomatology. We report our experience of 87 pediatric endoscopy procedures including esophagogastroduodenoscopy, colonoscopy and tissue biopsies performed in 85 infants, children and adolescent, 3 months-15 years old, over a two-year period, june 2002-november 2004 after complete history, physical examination and basic investigations. General anesthesia was used in all patients after informed consent obtained from parents. Non significant complications were observed in this series of patients. In 81 cases (92.5%) with clinical symptoms and laboratory indications for gastrointestinal disease, the endoscopy and bioptical samples confirmed the utility and safety of procedure. Coeliac disease (39 cases), gastritis (11 cases), esophagitis (6 cases) were the most common organic cause of upper gastrointestinal disease. Allergic and indeterminate colitis (7 cases) were the most common cause of lower gastrointestinal disease. In 4.7% the procedures appear to be particularly helpful in the diagnosis of inflammatory lesions of the esophagus and stomach. In summary, the data demonstrate that endoscopy techniques show low morbidity, provide important diagnostic informations in pediatric gastrointestinal diseases and can be done safely in patients over 3 months of age.