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Query: UMLS:C0024523 (malabsorption)
 7,319 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Protracted diarrhea is a clinical entity characterized by diarrhea lasting greater than 2 weeks, starting before 3 months of age, with severe nutritional aggravation and negative stool culture for enteropathogens. This report deals with the ultrastructural abnormalities found in the intestinal mucosa of children with protracted diarrhea. Forty children (mean age 5.1 months) were studied. They were submitted to the following tests of intestinal function: D-xylose, triglyceride tolerance, small bowel biopsy (light and electron microscope), sigmoidoscopy, and sweat test. D-Xylose absorption and triglyceride tolerance test in these patients were both significantly lower than controls. Ultrastructural analysis of the small bowel of 12 patients showed various degrees of alterations, mainly shortening of the microvilli, increased number of multivesicular bodies, and vacuolation of mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum. These lesions were totally reversible after clinical and nutritional recovery as could be proven in two children. The most common cause of protracted diarrhea in these patients was secondary carbohydrate intolerance and dietary protein cow's milk and soy bean intolerance, which resulted in colitis or malabsorption as a consequence of intestinal mucosa injury due to acute gastroenteritis.
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PMID:Protracted diarrhea in infancy: clinical aspects and ultrastructural analysis of the small intestine. 404 29

Protracted diarrhoea in early infancy gives rise to many diagnostic and therapeutic problems. Jejunal biopsy often reveals villous atrophy of varying degrees. Severe reduction of small intestinal absorptive area causes secondary monosaccharide malabsorption, as well as secondary disaccharide deficiency, consequences which are relevant in any attempts at oral feeding. Morphologic, metabolic, endocrinological and microbiological studies have to be undertaken in order to establish a definitive diagnosis in protracted diarrhoea, but these studies often fail to reveal the aetiology of the disease. Immunologic abnormalities like phagocyte dysfunction, thymic atrophy and hypoplasia of B-cell regions in lymph nodes might be secondary events, but some types of immunodeficiency are of primary importance in the development of protracted diarrhoea. Total parenteral nutrition in many cases has to be instituted, with all its implications and hazards: septicaemia is the most dangerous of these. Zinc deficiency and acrodermatitis enteropathica may occur during total parenteral nutrition, and zinc deficiency secondarily contributes to the symptoms of diarrhoea. Parenteral administration of zinc is able to overcome these effects.
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PMID:Protracted diarrhoea: secondary monosaccharide malabsorption and zinc deficiency with cutaneous manifestations during total parenteral nutrition. 677 99