Clinical Manifestations, Laboratory Data, and Epidemiologic Characteristics of Children With Hepatitis

Background: hepatitis a is the most common type of hepatitis in developing countries with a wide range of clinical features.objectives: the aim of this study was to evaluate clinical findings and epidemiologic characteristics of children with hepatitis a in in the southwest part of iran.patients and methods: a total of 105 patients with hepatitis a (53 males and 52 females) were enrolled in this study. the mean age of patients was 7.02 years (range, 4 months to 13 years). the majority of patients (81.9%) were in the age group of two to ten years. the disease occurred more frequently in summer and spring (71.5%). in a retrospective study, we reviewed the medical records of all children with acute hepatitis a (positive anti-hepatitis a virus igm) who had been admitted to the main children’s hospital in ahvaz, southwest iran from march 2005 to march 2010. statistical analysis was performed using spss 21.results: the main clinical findings included jaundice (80%), vomiting (75.2%), fever (62.8%), and hepatomegaly (37.1%). the mean of the paraclinical parameters were as follows: alt, 22.38 ?kat/l; ast, 19.40 ?kat/l; and bilirubin, 179.60 ?mol/l. mean duration of hospital stay was 4.7 days. all patients cured with supportive therapy. there was not any case of fulminant hepatitis, chronic hepatitis, or death. hepatitis a was a relatively common disease in children in southwest iran.conclusions: the disease is more prevalent in children younger than ten years. the prognosis is excellent with low mortality and morbidity.