Skip to main content
PMC home page
Archives of Disease in Childhood logoLink to Archives of Disease in Childhood
. 1977 Aug;52(8):627–632. doi: 10.1136/adc.52.8.627

Crohn's disease in childhood.

D P O'Donoghue, A M Dawson
PMCID: PMC1544637  PMID: 921308

Abstract

In 32 patients with Crohn's disease which started in childhood, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, and weight loss were the common presenting symptoms, but unexplained fever and failure to grow were also prominent. Stunted growth was the most frequent physical abnormality when first seen in hospital. The mean delay in diagnosis was almost 3 years and the principal contributing factor here was failure to consider the diagnosis and thus perform a barium follow-through examination. The cumulative relapse rate after medical therapy or surgical resection was disappointingly high, but because the median relapse time is much longer for surgically treated patients, surgery is recommended at an early stage, especially in those patients who are growth-retarded or whose education is suffering because of time lost from school.

Full text

PDF

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. BERKSON J., GAGE R. P. Calculation of survival rates for cancer. Proc Staff Meet Mayo Clin. 1950 May 24;25(11):270–286. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Burbige E. J., Huang S. H., Bayless T. M. Clinical manifestations of Crohn's disease in children and adolescents. Pediatrics. 1975 Jun;55(6):866–871. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Christensen M. F., Mortensen O. Long-term prognosis in children with recurrent abdominal pain. Arch Dis Child. 1975 Feb;50(2):110–114. doi: 10.1136/adc.50.2.110. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Dyer N. H., Dawson A. M. Diagnosis of Crohn's disease. A continuing source of error. Br Med J. 1970 Mar 21;1(5698):735–737. doi: 10.1136/bmj.1.5698.735. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Ehrenpreis T., Gierup J., Lagercrantz R. Chronic regional enterocolitis (mb Crohn) in children and adolescents. Acta Paediatr Scand. 1971 Mar;60(2):209–215. doi: 10.1111/j.1651-2227.1971.tb06644.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Farmer R. G., Hawk W. A., Turnbull R. B., Jr Clinical patterns in Crohn's disease: a statistical study of 615 cases. Gastroenterology. 1975 Apr;68(4 Pt 1):627–635. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Greenstein A. J., Sachar D. B., Pasternack B. S., Janowitz H. D. Reoperation and recurrence in Crohn's colitis and ileocolitis Crude and cumulative rates. N Engl J Med. 1975 Oct 2;293(14):685–690. doi: 10.1056/NEJM197510022931403. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Guttman F. M. Granulomatous enterocolitis in childhood and adolescence. J Pediatr Surg. 1974 Feb;9(1):115–121. doi: 10.1016/0022-3468(74)90017-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Lennard-Jones J. E., Stalder G. A. Prognosis after resection of chronic regional ileitis. Gut. 1967 Aug;8(4):332–336. doi: 10.1136/gut.8.4.332. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. McCaffery T. D., Jr, Nasr K., Lawrence A. M., Kirsner J. B. Effect of administered human growth hormone on growth retardation in inflammatory bowel disease. Am J Dig Dis. 1974 May;19(5):411–416. doi: 10.1007/BF01255604. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. McCaffery T. D., Nasr K., Lawrence A. M., Kirsner J. B. Severe growth retardation in children with inflammatory bowel disease. Pediatrics. 1970 Mar;45(3):386–393. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Miller D. S., Keighley A. C., Langman M. J. Changing patterns in epidemiology of Crohn's disease. Lancet. 1974 Sep 21;2(7882):691–693. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(74)93265-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. O'Donoghue D. P., Clark M. L. Inflammatory bowel disease in West Indians. Br Med J. 1976 Oct 2;2(6039):796–796. doi: 10.1136/bmj.2.6039.796. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Raine P. A. Crohn's disease in childhood. J R Coll Surg Edinb. 1975 Sep;20(5):312–319. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Smith I. S., Young S., Gillespie G., O'Connor J., Bell J. R. Epidemiological aspects of Crohn's disease in Clydesdale 1961-1970. Gut. 1975 Jan;16(1):62–67. doi: 10.1136/gut.16.1.62. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Tanner N. C. Dwarfism Resulting from Chronic Regional Enteritis. Proc R Soc Med. 1939 Mar;32(5):444–445. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. VAN PATTER W. N., BARGEN J. A., DOCKERTY M. B., FELDMAN W. H., MAYO C. W., WAUGH J. M. Regional enteritis. Gastroenterology. 1954 Mar;26(3):347–450. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Archives of Disease in Childhood are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group

RESOURCES