Seasonal Variability and Outcome of Childhood Intussusception; A Single Center Experience

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate seasonal variability and outcome of intussusception in the pediatric population. Study type, settings & duration: A Prospective Observational study was conducted in Department of Neonatal and Pediatric Surgery, The Children’s Hospital, PIMS, Islamabad for a period of one year from August 2022 to July 2023. Methodology: After approval from the ethical review committee, the study was conducted in children who presented in the ER and OPD during our study time period, aged between 3 to 18 months and with ultrasound confirmed intussusception. The diagnosis of intussusception was made based on clinical diagnosis and imaging results. All patients diagnosed with intussusception during the study period were included in the study after fulfilling inclusion criteria. The data collected from patients included the age (in months), gender, time interval from symptoms to hospital presentation, presenting symptoms, month patients presented, procedure performed and complications of treatment. Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 23 was used for data entry and analysis. For the sake of this research, the weather in Pakistan is divided into four seasons: winter (December to February), autumn (September to November), summer including rainy monsoon (June to August) and spring (March to May). Results: We enrolled 94 patients with mean age was 7.39±3.08 months. Out of 94 patients 58 (61.7%) patients were male and 36 (38.3%) patients were female. In duration from symptoms to hospital presentation 52.1% patients were reported after 48 hours. 44 (46.8%) cases of intussusception were reported in summer season including monsoon i.e..........

Keywords

• Intussusception
• seasonal variation
• target sign