Patologycal gastroesophageal reflux and associated respiratory diseases

In this article we have analysed the symptoms and clinical course in 80 children admitted to Zagreb Children’s Hospital for unclear respiratory symptoms. The aims of this research were to clasify the connection between gastroesophageal reflux (GER) and children’s respiratory symptoms and diseases; to stress the importance of 24-hour esophageal pH-monitoring in the treatment of patients with etiologically unclear respiratory symptoms, as well as to analyse the effects of the therapy applied. 24-hour pH-monitoring of the lower esophage was carried out in all the children and in 54 (67.4%) pathological results were recorded. The children were between 2 months and 14 years old, and the majority of them – 25 children (43.3%) were infants. In children with pathological GER, we found as many as 16 different respiratory diseases or symptoms, the most frequent being relapsed broncho-obstructions with periodical fever (in 33,3% of the children). With symptomatic therapy, in children, also medical treatment with prokinetics, H2–receptors antagonists or H+ - pump inhibitors was used. This treatment gave surprisingly good results in terms of the short treatment time and on the other hand, the immediate disappearance of symptoms.