SUCROSE PERMEABILITY IN CHILDREN WITH GASTRIC DAMAGE AND HELICOBACTER-PYLORI INFECTION

Background: Increased permeability to sucrose has been recently shown to be a good marker of gastric mucosal damage in adults. Methods: This test was evaluated in 40 children consulting for recurrent abdominal pain and the results were correlated with endoscopic and histologic fi ndings and with the presence of H. pylori. Results: The gastric mucosa was considered endoscopically normal in 31 children; 3 had duodenitis , and 6 had mild gastritis. Abnormal endoscopic findings were associat ed with increased urinary sucrose excretion (MANOVA F = 7.30; p = 0.00 2). In the 6 children with mild gastritis, mean sucrose excretion was twice that of controls (0.060 +/- 0.024 vs. 0.029 +/- 0.018, respectiv ely; p = 0.019) and significantly higher than the group with duodeniti s (0.037 +/- 0.013;p = 0.038). The specificity and sensitivity of sucr ose permeability test for detection of gastric damage were 90.3% and 8 3.3%, respectively. N. pylori was detected in 62.5% of children includ ing all patients with mild gastritis, in 2 out of 3 with duodenitis an d 17 out of 31 endoscopically normal controls. No differences in sucro se excretion were observed in relation with the presence of II. pylori or histological findings in the control group. Conclusions: Urinary s ucrose excretion is a good marker of mucosal gastric damage in childre n and may be used as a screening test in large groups of populations.