Ayesha Sardar, Arit Parkash, Bushra Qamar, Ayesha Altaf Merchant, Faryal Ayub, Sohail Ahmed.
Upper Gastrointestinal Endoscopy findings in Children Presented with Chronic Liver Disease.
Pak Paed J Jan ;46(2):160-5.

Objective: To evaluate the upper gastrointestinal endoscopic findings in the pediatric population with chronic liver disease. Study Design: Cross-sectional study Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted at pediatric gastroenterology unit of National Institute of Child Health, Karachi between July 2021 to March 2022. Material and Methods: All children aged 1 year to 15 years who presented with clinical features of chronic liver disease were included in the study. Children younger than one year or above the age of 15 years, and those with severe coagulopathy, thrombocytopenia and who were sick at presentation were excluded. All children underwent upper gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy for the detection of esophageal varices. Results: A total of 72 patients were included in the study with a mean age of 7.71 +- 2.51 years. Thirteen (18.1%) patients had Grade I varices and four (5.6%) patients had fundal varix. The Child-Pugh score was significantly associated with severity of esophageal varices (p<0.001). Splenomegaly was found to be significantly associated with Grade I and II esophageal varices with a frequency of 100% and 76.9%, respectively (p<0.0001). 61.6% of patients with Grade III esophageal varices had less than 100,000 platelets, albeit the relationship was not significant. Conclusion: The present study reported the presence of esophageal varices in more than one-half of the study population. Both splenomegaly and higher Child-Pugh score correlated significantly with the advanced esophageal varices.

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