Overlap of some forms of functional pathology of organs of digestion in children

Introduction. In the adult population, a high prevalence of the gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) can vary from 3 to 79%. As for children, there are a few works on the overlap between functional dyspepsia and IBS, GERD and functional constipation. Aim. To determine the prevalence of overlap of the GERD syndrome with irritable bowel syndrome and functional dyspepsia in school-age children. Materials and methods. The study included ninety eight cases including 71 boy and 27 girls, aged of 7 to 17 years (mean age 11.4 ± 2.1 years) suffered from erosive GERD. The comparison group consisted of 30 patients (11 boys and 19 girls), of mean age of 12.7 ± 1.8 years without erosive GERD). The criterion for inclusion in the main group was the presence of erosive changes in the esophagus according to fibrogastroduodenoscopy, in the comparison group the — manifestation of heartburn, with occurrence, at least twice a week over the past three months and the absence of erosive changes in the esophagus according to fibrogastroduodenoscopy. The exclusion criterion was the presence of organic pathology with sides of the upper (peptic ulcer, etc.) and lower parts of the digestive tract (ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, etc.) Results. Every fourth GERD patient (25.8%) has an overlap with functional bowel diseases, while GERD is more often combined with IBS with diarrhea (15.6%) than IBS with constipation/functional constipation (10.2%). Overlap of IBS with postprandial distress syndrome is much less common — only in 7.0% of children. Conclusion. School-age GERD children are characterized by frequent overlap with functional bowel diseases, the frequency of which reaches 25.8%. The combination of all three diseases (IBS, GERD and postprandial distress syndrome) was observed in 2.3% of cases. These patterns are typical for patients with both erosive and non-erosive forms of GERD.