Mucoid presentation of acute enterocolitis in children: a hospital-based case-control study

A hospital-based case-control study was carried out to clarify the characte ristics of mucoid presentation of acute enterocolitis in children. One hund red sixty-eight cases of acute mucoid enterocolitis (study population) were compared with 200 cases of watery diarrhoea and 118 cases of blood dysente ry (control groups) on the basis of clinical characteristics and findings o n stool examination. Study and control groups were comparable with respect to age, body weight and nutritional status. There was no significant differ ence in clinical characteristics (duration of diarrhoea, stool frequency, p resence of vomiting, fever and dehydration) between patients suffering from . mucoid enterocolitis and blood dysentery. However, watery diarrhoea patie nts had significantly high frequencies of vomiting (p = 0.00001) and dehydr ation (p = 0.00001). High numbers of microscopic red blood cells (mean+/-SD : 40.8+/-16.8) and white blood cells (40.6+/-18.0) were present in faecal s amples of the patients with mucoid enterocolitis, which is indicative of in fection caused by enteroinvasive enteropathogens. Shigella was a commonly i dentified enteropathogen in patients with mucoid enterocolitis (40.5%) and in patients with dysentery (46.6%), with no statistically significant diffe rence (p = 0.30). Isolation of Salmonella was statistically similar in stud y and control groups. However, Entamoeba histolytica was detected in signif icantly high frequency in patients with mucoid enterocolitis as compared to the patients with dysentery (p = 0.0004) and watery diarrhoea (p = 0.00004 ). Our results indicate that mucoid enterocolitis patients are infected wit h enteroinvasive enteropathogens, and that stool examination is useful in e stablishing the aetiological diagnosis.