Pediatr Gastroenterol Hepatol Nutr.  2015 Dec;18(4):261-267. 10.5223/pghn.2015.18.4.261.

The Importance of Esophageal and Gastric Diseases as Causes of Chest Pain

• Kim YJ
• Shin EJ
• Kim NS
• Lee YH
• Nam EW

• KMID: 2383304
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.5223/pghn.2015.18.4.261

Abstract

PURPOSE
Pediatric chest pain is considered to be idiopathic or caused by benign diseases. This study was to find out how much upper gastrointestinal (UGI) diseases are major causes of chest pain in pediatric patients.
METHODS
The records of 75 children (42 boys and 33 girls, aged 3-17 years old) who have presented with mainly chest pain from January 1995 to March 2015 were retrospectively reviewed. Chest X-ray and electrocardiography (ECG) were performed in all aptients. Further cardiologic and gastrointestinal (GI) evaluations were performed in indicated patients.
RESULTS
Chest pain was most common in the children of 6 and 9 to 14 years old. Esopha-gogastric diseases were unexpectedly the most common direct causes of the chest pain, the next are idiopathic, cardiac diseases, chest trauma, respiratory disease, and psychosomatic disease. Even though 21 showed abnormal ECG findings and 7 showed abnormalities on echocardiography, cardiac diseases were determined to be the direct causes only in 9. UGI endoscopy was performed in 57 cases, and esophago-gastric diseases which thereafter were thought to be causative diseases were 48 cases. The mean age of the children with esophago-gastric diseases were different with marginal significance from that of the other children with chest pain not related with esophago-gastric diseases. All the 48 children diagnosed with treated with GI medicines based on the diagnosis, and 37 cases (77.1%) subsequently showed clinical improvement.
CONCLUSION
Diagnostic approaches to find out esophageal and gastric diseases in children with chest pain are important as well as cardiac and respiratory investigations.

Keyword

Chest pain; Child; Esophageal diseases; Stomach diseases; Endoscopy

MeSH Terms

Chest Pain*
Child
Diagnosis
Echocardiography
Electrocardiography
Endoscopy
Esophageal Diseases
Female
Heart Diseases
Humans
Retrospective Studies
Stomach Diseases*
Thorax*

Figure

• 

  Fig. 1 Age and sex distribution of the 75 children with chest pain.

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