Acute pancreatitis in children and adolescents

In this Topic Highlight, the causes, diagnosis, and treat-ment of acute pancreatitis in children are discussed. Acute pancreatitis should be considered during the dif-ferential diagnosis of abdominal pain in children and requires prompt treatment because it may become life-threatening. The etiology,...

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Published inWorld journal of gastrointestinal pathophysiology Vol. 5; no. 4; pp. 416 - 426
Main Authors Suzuki, Mitsuyoshi, Sai, Jin Kan, Shimizu, Toshiaki
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Baishideng Publishing Group Inc 15.11.2014
Subjects
Acute
Children
Diagnosis
Etiology
pancreatitis
Pathophysiology
Topic Highlight
Treatment
Acute pancreatitis
Treatment
Children
Diagnosis
Pathophysiology
Etiology
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Summary:In this Topic Highlight, the causes, diagnosis, and treat-ment of acute pancreatitis in children are discussed. Acute pancreatitis should be considered during the dif-ferential diagnosis of abdominal pain in children and requires prompt treatment because it may become life-threatening. The etiology, clinical manifestations, and course of acute pancreatitis in children are often differ-ent than in adults. Therefore, the specific features of acute pancreatitis in children must be considered. The etiology of acute pancreatitis in children is often drugs, infections, trauma, or anatomic abnormalities. Diagnosis is based on clinical symptoms(such as abdominal pain and vomiting), serum pancreatic enzyme levels, and im-aging studies. Several scoring systems have been pro-posed for the assessment of severity, which is useful for selecting treatments and predicting prognosis. The basic pathogenesis of acute pancreatitis does not greatly dif-fer between adults and children, and the treatments for adults and children are similar. In large part, our under-standing of the pathology, optimal treatment, assess-ment of severity, and outcome of acute pancreatitis in children is taken from the adult literature. However, we often find that the common management of adult pan-creatitis is difficult to apply to children. With advances in diagnostic techniques and treatment methods, severeacute pancreatitis in children is becoming better under-stood and more controllable.
Bibliography:Mitsuyoshi Suzuki;Jin Kan Sai;Toshiaki Shimizu;Departments of Pediatrics, Juntendo University;Departments of Gastroenterology, Juntendo University
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Correspondence to: Mitsuyoshi Suzuki, MD, PhD, Department of Pediatrics, Juntendo University, 2-1-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113 8421, Japan. msuzuki@juntendo.ac.jp
Telephone: +81-3-38133111-3640 Fax: +81-3-58001580
Author contributions: Suzuki M performed experiments and participated in writing and figure creation; Sai JK and Shimizu T conceived the idea and participated in writing.
ISSN:2150-5330
2150-5330
DOI:10.4291/wjgp.v5.i4.416