Physical development and bone mineral density of children with inflammatory bowel diseases

Abstract

Relevance. Inflammatory bowel diseases can cause a lag in physical development and a decrease in the nutritional status of children. Therapy with glucocorticosteroids can aggravate the process of formation of the body and reduce the mineralization of bone tissue.Materials and methods. The study included 24 children aged 5 to 17 years with inflammatory bowel diseases, of which 19 patients did not use glucocorticosteroids in therapy – group 1, and group 2–5 children on hormone therapy. The groups did not differ statistically significantly in age and gender composition. In order to assess the level of physical development, an assessment of anthropometric indicators was carried out using the ANTHRO Plus program. Bone mineral density was assessed by densitometry. Statistical processing was carried out using Statistica 6.0 statistical programs and descriptive statistics methods. To compare independent groups of small volume, the method was used Mann-WhitneyResults. The evaluation of length, body weight and body mass index was carried out, as a result, it was found that the majority of patients who participated in the study had an average level of physical development in the population, no statistically significant differences were found by any criterion (p > 0.05). When assessing the BMD in children with IBD who did not use hormone therapy in the treatment of diseases, it was found that the Z-Score level within the reference values was observed in 57.9% (n = 11) children, 1 (5.3%) child has below –2.49 and in 36.8% (n = 7) the Z-Score level was determined in the range from –1.00 SD to –2.49 SD. More than half of the patients in group 2 had no changes in BMD (60%; n = 3), the Z-Score value in 1 (20%) patient corresponded to the level of osteopenia and in 1 (20%) child – osteoporosis. No differences were found between the groups and depending on physical development, gender or age (p > 0.05).Conclusions. It was found that children, regardless of the use of hormone therapy they have similar indicators in the levels of physical development and bone mineralization. The importance of monitoring the studied indicators for the timely prevention of changes is noted.