Abstract :Background: Data on the prevalence of ulcers in children are insufficient. We aimed to investigate
the frequency of peptic ulcer and evaluate the effects of H. pylori infection, gender, age on peptic
ulcer, and the value of endoscopy in children.
Methods: Eight hundred patients with chronic abdominal pain were enrolled. Upper endoscopy was
performed if all the initial evaluations were normal. Clinical findings, laboratory results, endoscopic
and pathologic findings were investigated retrospectively.
Results: Among all patients with chronic abdominal pain, ulcer disease was identified in 84 (10.5%)
patients. Ulcer was observed 1.7 times more frequently in patients with H. pylori positivity. There is
a significant relationship between H. pylori infection and the ulcer frequency (p=0.03). There was a
non significant relationship between H. pylori infection and ulcer types as duodenal or gastric ulcer
(p=0.08). There was no statistical relationship between ulcer and sex (p=0.45). We determined no
statistical relationship between the ulcer types and sex (p=0.68). Age had an impact on ulceration,
age was a good indicator for the discrimination of patients with or without ulcer (p=0.010). Each
one-year increase of age caused a 1.1 fold increase in ulceration. The results revealed that age, sex
and H. pylori positivity were not risk factors for gastric ulcer.
Conclusions: Ulcer disease is one of organic causes of chronic abdominal pain in children.
Endoscopy is an important procedure for the diagnosis. However, more studies are needed to
determine the causes and accurate prevalence of the ulcer.