THE VALUE OF ESOPHAGEAL pH MONITORING FOR THE DIAGNOSIS OF GASTROESOPHAGEAL REFLUX

We studied the gastroesophageal reflux in a group of 31 infants using 24 hours esophageal pH monitoring. Including criteria: suspicion of gastroesophageal reflux in infants with extradigestive clinical manifestations, gastroesophageal reflux persistent after treatment, no prokinetic medication 48 hours before the examination. Excluding criteria: length of pH monitoring shorter than 18 hours, graphics with artifacts. Our results proved several significant differences for reflux parameters in symptomatic patients: subjects with chronic cough have higher reflux index (RI) and Euler score (ES) than those without cough, subjects with recurrent pneumonia have higher values for the length of the longest episode of reflux (LLER) than those with no pneumonia, subjects presenting wheezing have higher number of episodes of reflux (NER) than those with no airway obstruction symptoms, subjects with malaise have a higher ES than those without malaise, subjects showing growth failure have higher number of episodes of reflux longer than 5 minutes (NER5) than those with normal somatic development.