All issues > Volume 33(11); 1990

Original Article

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1990;33(11):1548-1556. Published online November 30, 1990.

A Study of Ultrasonographic findings in Children with Gastrointestinal Symptoms.

Dong Lag Choi¹, Kwang Sup Kim¹, Jong Wang Kim¹, Duk Kyu Kim¹, Kwang Nam Kim¹, Ki Yang Ryoo¹, Hyo Keun Lim²

¹Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Hallym Unversity, Seoul, Korea
²Department of Radiology, College of Medicine, Hallym Unversity, Seoul, Korea

Received: June 16, 1990;  Accepted: September 4, 1990.

Abstract

We analyzed retrospectively the sonographic findings in 162 children who accompanied with gastrointes- tinal symptoms and performed the comparative analysis of the clinico-pathologic findings to sonographic findings from Jan. 1988 to July 1989. The most frequent symptom was abdominal pain (79.6%). The clinical impression prior to ultrasonography were acute appendicitis (34%), mesenteric lymphadenitis (10.4%), hyper- trophic pyloric stenosis (5%) in order. Positive cases in the ultrasonography were 77 (47.5%). Among these findings, acute appendicitis was 12.3%, mesenteric lymphadenitis 6.1%, intussusception 4.9%, hypertrophic pyloric stenosis 3% in order. Among patients though to have acute appendicitis clinically (N = 55), 20 patients were positive in the ultrasonography. According to correlation with surgical-pathologic findings (N = 22), ultrasonography showed that sensitivity was 90%, specificity 94%，and diagnostic accuracy 93%. The results show that ultrasonography is useful screening method in the detection and differentiation of intraabdominal pathology in the patients with gastrointestinal symptoms.

Keywords :Gastrointestinal symptoms, Abdominal ultrasonography