Aim: Evaluation of the changes in the endoscopic, laboratory and clinical status in children with ulcerative colitis (UC) with regard to the duration of the disease.
Material and methods: 91 children with UC were involved in the study. Each of them had colonoscopy and their laboratory values were tested. We assessed the colonoscopy results by the Paris classification and by the Baron score. Moreover, demographic, clinical and anthropometric data were collected. We divided our patients into five subgroups depending on the duration of the disease. In order to assess the changes in the variables, we conducted the Mann-Whitney U test.
Results: The most numerous group were patients whose disease had lasted between 1 and 2.5 years. At the time of assessment 39.6% did not have inflammation lesions in the mucosa and 60.4% were in sustained clinical remission. At the time of diagnosis 55% of the participants had pancolitis or extensive colitis and 66% had ulcers or ulcerations in the mucosa. We found a statistically significant decrease in the extension of the disease between the patient at diagnosis and the patient during the first year after diagnosis, with p=0.049, but there were no statistically significant differences in the activity of the inflammatory changes between those groups. No significant changes were found in laboratory values, apart from those pertaining to faecal calprotectin (FC). During our study 95% of the patients were exposed to mesalazin, 66% to corticosteroids, 57% to immunosuppressants and 10% to biologics. 20% of our patients were exposed to steroids more than once.
Conclusions: The changes observed during colonoscopy in children with UC have a widespread localization and varied aggression. With the duration of the disease, inflammatory lesions tend to acquire more and more of the surface in the colon, but are not characterized by a progression of their activity. The issue requires further well-designed studies.
Keywords: children; colonoscopy; ulcerative colitis.