Features of physical development and nutritional status of children with Crohn disease

Objective. Any severe chronic disease affects the physical development and nutritional status of the child. In Crohn's disease, this effect is complex, because. the gastrointestinal tract is involved in the pathological process, the absorption of nutrients is impaired, and more often the losses exceed the intake of basic nutrients and energy. Patients and methods. In a single-center observational study in the gastroenterology department of a multidisciplinary pediatric hospital, anthropometry data were evaluated in 94 patients (44.7% boys, 55.3% girls) aged 3 to 17 years (mean age 7 years) with a verified diagnosis of Crohn's disease, receiving treatment. Children are divided into age groups according to the WHO classification. Assessment of physical development (height, weight, BMI) was carried out according to the WHO Anthro and WHO AnthroPlus programs. Statistical processing of the material was carried out using the IBM Stata 12 application software package. The hypothesis of normal distribution was tested using the Shapiro–Wilk and Kolmogorov–Smirnov tests. In order to detect differences between the samples, the Kruskall–Wallis test was used; for a posterior comparisons, the Bonferroni correction was used. Results. Most often, children with this diagnosis seek specialized medical care in the period of second childhood (n = 25), adolescence (n = 44) and late adolescence (n = 17). There is a shift in the Z-score of growth to the zone of low values in the groups of the first and second childhood. Among patients of adolescence and youth, there are children with medium and high growth. Body weight deficiency was found in children of the first and second childhood. Deficient BMI is more common in children of adolescence and youth, at the same time, obesity occurs among these patients, but much less frequently than in the general population. Key words: BMI, сhildren, Crohn's disease, physical development