Ascites in Children: a Single Center Experience of 27 years.

Objectives: The aim of our study was to describe the changing prevalence, demographic features, etiologies, and treatment of ascites in children hospitalized over a 27 year period at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed discharges from 1983-2010 to select patients whose records included a diagnosis of ascites. We assessed the etiologies and degrees of ascites (ascites grade 1 detectable only by radiologic tests; ascites grade 2&3 recognized by moderate and marked abdominal distension by physical examinations). Results: We classified 518 children into 9 etiology groups: 105 had intrahepatic disease (IH), hepatic vein outflow obstruction (HVOO) (45), congestive heart disease (CH) (33), nephrotic syndrome (NS) (36), pancreatitis (26), inflammatory & infectious diseases (77), malignancy (49), idiopathic (71), and miscellaneous (76). IH and CH were predominant in younger age group (0-5 years) vs HVOO, pancreatitis and malignancy in the older age group (13-21 years) (p

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