All issues > Volume 30(3); 1987

Original Article

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1987;30(3):259-265. Published online March 31, 1987.

A Clinical Observation on Failure to Thrive.

Yung Tak Lim¹, Chan young Kim¹

¹Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Pusan National University

Abstract

A clinical study was performed on 83 cases of infant and child with failure to thrive who had admitted or visited to Department of Pediatrics, Pusan National University Hospital during the period of 6 years from January 1980 to December 1985. The results'were as follows; 1) Failure to thrive was the most common in the age group of under 12 months old (62.5%) and sex ratio of male to female was 1: 1.1. 2) About birth weight distribution of the patients with failure to thrive, the patients who had normal birth weight (2.6~4.0 kg) were most common (71.1%) and under weighting infants at birth were 15 cases (18.1%). As comparing with height percentile, the patients whose height were under 3 percentile were 39 cases(47.0%). 3) The cause of failure to thrive was largely classified to organic and non-organic etiology. The patients who had organic etiology were 65 cases (78.4%) and non-organic etiology were 11 cases (13.2%), undetermined were 7 cases (8.4%). The most common cause of non-organic case was feeding error as 9 cases (10.8%). 4) Among 65 cases of organic etiology, cardio-pulmonary system disorder was most common as 22 cases (33.8%) which including 13 cases of congenital heart disease and 6 cases of recurrent pneumonia. Other causes in descending order of frequency were gastrointestinal disorder as 13 cases (2.0%) including 9 cases of chronic gastroenteritis, central nervous system disorder (12.3%) including 4 cases of cerebral palsy and mental retardation, endocrine disorder (7.7%), musculoskeletal disorder (7.7%).

Keywords :Failure to thrive.