Helicobacter Pylori Infection and Recurrent Abdominal Pain in Children

Background: Helicobacter pylori (HP) is a gram-negative bacillus responsible for one of the most common infections found in humans worldwide. The incidence is 3-10% of the population each year in developing countries compared with 0.5% in developed countries. Most children infected with H pylori are asymptomatic. The relationship between H pylori infection and recurrent abdominal pain (RAP) is controversial.

Objective: To determine the incidence of HP infection in children with RAP.

Material and Method: The study is a retrospective one. We have taken in the study all the children with recurrent abdominal pain caused by HP infection that came as “new outpatient” in Pediatrics, between January 2017 – December 2018 and we analized the management they received.

Results: From a total of 1004 “new outpatients” with RAP, 37 were confirmed with HP infection (3.68%), a higher rate of infecion than we found out in different studies. In all the pacients, the first tratment was represented by OAC asociation, with a 67.56% rate of cure (25 pacients). From the other 12 cases, 9 pacients cured after the second tratment (OMA asociation). Two more patients remained asintomatics after the second tratment. We confirmed antibiotic resistence in only 1 case (both metronidazole and claritromicin) and the pacient became asintomatic and cured with OAR asociation.With the two “clasical” tratments, for 14 days, we obtained the cure in 91.9% patients.

Conclusion: The incidence in our area is not concordante with other studies; that could be explained by the mixture of population here. Despite of this, we obtained very good results with the clasical treatment.