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.