ROLE OF IRON THERAPY IN CHILDREN WITH PERSISTENT DIARRHOEA

Al-Sawaf Faris B, Al-Malah Basam A

Dept. of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, University of Mosul, Mosul, Iraq

 

One hundred patients with persistent diarrhoea and pallor admitted to AL-Khansa¡¯s Pediatric Teaching Hospital were studied during the period between May 1999 to March 2000. Their age was between 4 months to 2 years. 64 were males and 36 were females. The majority was from rural areas. And most of the patients were bottle-fed and they were underweight with hypochromic microcytic anaemia, low serum iron, with high total iron binding capacity.

 

They were divided into two groups. Group A, 50 patients received parenteral iron therapy and group B was given placebo (B-plex) injections. The majority of the patients in group A responded well to iron therapy as evident by their improvement in their diarrhoea, color and the short stay in hospital, as compared to group B (p value < 0.001).

 

So in conclusion iron therapy is beneficial in the treatment of children with persistent diarrhoea, but further studies are needed to evaluate more the efficacy of iron therapy in persistent diarrhoea in children.

 
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