In this episode of PEM Currents: The Pediatric Emergency Medicine Podcast, I explore the complexities of gastroesophageal reflux (GER) and gastritis in children and adolescents. I’ll make the important distinction between gastritis – which is diagnosed only via endoscopy – and dyspepsia, the term best used to describe the symptoms many patients experience. I’ll dive into the latest clinical practice guidelines and discuss evidence-based approaches to diagnosis and treatment.
Join me as I scope out the nuances of gastroesophageal reflux and gastritis and provide practical insights for clinicians in the emergency setting.
@PEMTweets on… sigh “X” (Twitter)
My Mastodon account @bradsobo
References
Rosen R, Vandenplas Y, Singendonk M, et al. Pediatric Gastroesophageal Reflux Clinical Practice Guidelines: Joint Recommendations of the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition and the European Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition. J Pediatr Gastroenterol Nutr. 2018;66(3):516-554. doi: 10.1097/MPG.0000000000001889
Lightdale JR, Gremse DA; Section on Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition. Gastroesophageal Reflux: Management Guidance for the Pediatrician. Pediatrics. 2013;131(5):e1684-1695. doi: 10.1542/peds.2013-0421
Tighe M, Afzal NA, Bevan A, et al. Pharmacological Treatment of Children with Gastro-oesophageal Reflux. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2014;2014(11):CD008550. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD008550.pub2
Sintusek P, Mutalib M, Thapar N. Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease in Children: What’s New Right Now? World J Gastrointest Endosc. 2023;15(3):84-102. doi: 10.4253/wjge.v15.i3.84
Transcript
Note: This transcript was partially completed with the use of the Descript AI
Welcome to PEMCurrents, the pediatric emergency medicine podcast. As always, I’m your host, Brad Sobolewski, and today’s episode will focus on gastro esophageal reflux and gastritis in children and adolescents. Both conditions can present with similar symptoms. They do, though, have distinct pathophysiologies and management strategies.
So we’re going to discuss the evidence based approaches to diagnosis and treatment, and I will talk about why it is presumptive to call things gastritis before definitive diagnosis, even though I put it in the title of the episode. Alright, let’s scope things out. I’m going to begin by making a brief distinction between gastroesophageal reflux and gastroesophageal reflux disease.
So, reflux itself is a common physiologic process, especially in infants, that usually resolves by 12 to 18 months, when the gastroesophageal sphincter gets tighter, and kids spend more of their life on it. upright. Gastroesophageal reflux disease is when the patients have severe symptoms that persist and cause long term issues.
Now, either way, this is due to reflux of the stomach contents into the esophagus. Now, gastroesophageal reflux is incredibly common in infants with up to 50 percent of b cells. babies under three months regurgitating daily. This typically peaks at about four months of age and improves as the infant grows.
Gastroesophageal reflux disease is less common, but still affects about 10 percent of children and up to 10 to 20 percent of adolescents. Adolescents with GERD often present similarly to adults with heartburn and regurgitation as the primary complaints. Now there are some risk factors for GERD.
Gastroesophageal reflux and reflux disease in children. A main one is neurological impairment. So kids with cerebral palsy or other neurologic disorders have delayed gastric emptying and poor esophageal motility, increasing the risk of GERD. Children with respiratory conditions and chronic lung disease like asthma are more prone to GERD as well.
And reflux itself can exacerbate the existing respiratory symptoms either through microaspiration or vagal mediated bronchospasm. Prematurity and congenital conditions like esophageal atresia also obviously increase the risk. So gastroesophageal reflux and reflux disease result from transient relaxation of the lower esophageal sphincter.
That allows acidic gastric contents to flow back into the esophagus. Now, the lower esophageal sphincter is supposed to prevent this reflux from happening. In GERD, the sphincter relaxes too frequently or incompletely, which can lead to symptoms building up over time. Other factors like delayed gastric emptying and abnormal esophageal motility can worsen problems in general.
And the presentation for GERD varies by age. Infants will have frequent spitting up or vomiting after feeds, irritability during or after feeds, especially in the more significant cases where the esophagus is irritated. Uh, infants may start to refuse to feed due to the discomfort. They can have poor weight gain or even failure to thrive in more severe cases.
And they can have Sandefur syndrome, which is the arching of the back and dystonic posturing that occurs during or after feeds as a response to discomfort from acid reflux. This is sometimes misidentified as seizures. In older children and adolescents, heartburn is the most common symptom. It’s a burning sensation in the chest or epigastrium, and that is the classic symptom in this age group.
You can also see regurgitation, acid or food regurgitating into the mouth, leading to a sour taste. uh, ill defined epigastric or chest pain, and it’s often worse by eating or lying down after meals. And some other symptoms that you gotta think about in reflux, chronic cough, hoarseness, or even asthma like symptoms.
These extra esophageal manifestations can occur due to irritation of the upper airways by the gastric contents. Now, in the pediatric emergency department, the diagnosis of reflux is primarily clinical. You just got to take a good history and do a physical examination, especially when the symptoms are typical, like regurgitation, heartburn, or epigastric pain in an older child or adolescent.
You want to take a good history on feeding or dietary habits. In infants, you want to know the amount and frequency of feeding, especially because baby stomachs are small and no newborn stomach can hold six ounces. So, the parents may say, well, he Doesn’t ever seem full. Well, baby doesn’t know how to be full.
So really, you need to learn how much a baby can take and follow weight gain appropriately. Overfeeding a baby will lead to increased spitting up and reflux. You should also ask about older children and adolescents eating trigger foods like spicy things, caffeinated beverages, and acidic beverages like pop.
These can all exacerbate reflux. You want to ask about nocturnal symptoms. So if the kid has symptoms that are worse at night or immediately upon waking up, this may indicate reflux exacerbated by lying down, especially after meals. Red flags that you should always ask about include hematemesis, melana, dysphagia, and Unintentional weight loss, these all need further investigation for complications like esophagitis or another diagnosis such as EOE or peptic ulcer disease.
If any of those red flags are present, you should definitely consider a further diagnostic workup. Again, otherwise the diagnosis is based on history and physical examination. So if you see failure to thrive or poor weight gain, again, vomiting blood or passing black tori stools, signs of esophagitis such as painful swallowing or difficulty swallowing.
They need more workup often via GI. So diagnostic testing centers around endoscopy. That’s the gold standard and ultimately getting a camera in there. Taking a look for strictures or ulcers and taking a biopsy of the esophageal and gastric mucosa will make the diagnosis and evaluate for other things like eosinophilic esophagitis or helicobacter pylori infection.
Also get a pH monitoring and impedance probe. This measures both acid and non acid reflux events. It’s kind of like a Holter monitor for reflux. This is obviously ordered by a gastroenterologist, but But the probe itself measures reflux, and then the patient can press a button for an event monitor. And this is particularly useful in children with atypical symptoms or extra esophageal manifestations like cough or asthma, and especially in those that have had a normal endoscopy.
Contrast radiography, like a barium swallow, has much lower sensitivity and specificity than scopes or, in certain situations, even impedance probes and pH monitors. Now, that being said, imaging can be helpful if you suspect hypertrophic pyloric stenosis or other causes of obstruction such as duodenal atresia or antral webs.
But again, you should suspect these based on a detailed history and physical. A management of gastroesophageal reflux is largely dependent on the severity of symptoms and the patient’s age. And most cases of GERD in a pediatric ED can be managed conservatively with feeding or lifestyle modifications and short term pharmacotherapy.
So in infants, you want to recommend smaller, more frequent feeds. Again, overfeeding is a common contributor to reflux in infants. Maybe parents will have to thicken the feeds, but I do not recommend this in the emergency department. Um, and this practice adds rice cereal to the formula or express breast milk that may reduce regurgitation.
Again, this should only really be done under supervision of the child’s pediatrician, keeping infants upright for a half hour after feeds, can let gravity be your friend and reduce reflux episodes. And in older Children and adolescents, the first and most important thing to do is to do dietary modifications like avoiding trigger foods, caffeine, chocolate, spicy foods and acidic beverages like pop.
Large fatty meals should also be avoided, especially in the two to three hours before bedtime. You should encourage older children to avoid lying down immediately after meals, and in some cases, elevating the head of the bed by 30 degrees can reduce night time symptoms. If you feel that you do need to do pharmacologic management, The most effective drugs are proton pump inhibitors like omeprazole and lansoprazole.
They can reduce gastric acid production and help heal the esophagus. A 4 8 week trial of PPIs is recommended for children with moderate to severe GERD, especially those with esophagitis. So you could start that in the emergency department if the symptoms are severe enough, provided that they have primary doctor follow ups.
You may need to wean these PPIs off if symptoms improve because long term use could be associated with risks such as malabsorption of calcium and magnesium or maybe even an increased risk of GI infections such as C. difficile. H2 blockers or H2 formatidine can be used as an alternative to PPIs in milder cases of GERD.
They start working faster. Again, the PPI’s take three to four days to start working. H2’s work immediately. They do reduce acid production to a lesser degree. In older children and adolescents, antacids can provide symptomatic relief of heartburn, but they don’t address underlying acid production. And then there’s things for infants like myelocon and gas drops.
And if you want to try them, go ahead, but they ain’t gonna stop the physiologic process of reflux. And I’ll touch on surgical management briefly before moving on to part two. In rare, severe cases where GERD is refractory to medical management, surgical interventions like fundoplication may be considered, especially in kids with neurologic impairments or life threatening aspiration.
All right, let us shift gears to gastritis. So gastritis is inflammation of the gastric mucosa and can result from infections such as H. pylori, H. pylori, medication overuse, particularly NSAIDs or other stressors. Children with gastritis often present with epigastric pain, nausea, and vomiting, particularly after meals.
And yes, these symptoms do overlap with gastroesophageal reflux and gastroesophageal reflux disease, but they are separate entities. Now there’s a big caveat here. I know that I’m using the word gastritis. And it’s even in the title of the episode. But technically, this diagnosis is only made after endoscopy and biopsy.
Trust me, I asked a gastroenterologist about this directly. So therefore, if you’re seeing this kid for the first time and there’s no established diagnosis, it’s more accurate, especially when an endoscopy has not yet happened, to diagnose them and label that diagnosis based on their symptoms, such as abdominal pain, nausea, early satiety, endoscopy.
Or, you can label it as dyspepsia, also known as indigestion. This refers to a condition characterized by discomfort or pain in the upper abdomen. Typically manifests as fullness, bloating, nausea, or burning in the stomach, especially after eating. And as noted throughout this episode, dyspepsia can be caused by several factors that overlap with GERD and even a kid who gets an ultimate diagnosis of gastritis, like overeating, spicy or fatty food, stress, or underlying conditions.
And technically, the most common cause is functional dyspepsia. Now, I know that’s a lot to digest, and you might be starting to churn, but let’s talk now about the relationship between eating and pain. A key feature of gastritis is the timing of pain. Pain in gastritis typically occurs shortly after eating, as food stimulates gastric acid production, which can irritate the inflamed stomach lining.
You want to ask detailed questions about the timing in pain in relation to meals. Again, that pain is mostly shortly after eating. The foods that cause more symptoms are the ones you’d expect. Spicy, fatty, acidic, or caffeinated items. A detailed dietary history is one of the first steps to making the diagnosis.
You also want to take a detailed history of medication use, especially NSAIDs. Chronic NSAID use for often comorbid symptoms such as headache can damage the gastric mucosa leading to gastritis. The red flag symptoms, as expected, are similar to GERD. Look for signs of GI bleeding, such as hematemesis or melanoma.
or somebody who appears pale, dehydrated, in severe pain, or worse, even in shock. So if you think a kid has dyspepsia, or maybe even eventually gastritis, it’s the history and physical alone which will make the diagnosis. Now a GI cocktail, which is antacid plus viscous lidocaine, could modify the patient’s current symptoms and help sort of convince them where the pain is coming from.
It has been called into question recently by the adult literature. And probably with good cause, as In an older adult with GI symptoms, you should be worried about myocardial infarction or other causes and if you alleviate or mask the pain then you may be moving yourself away from a more important diagnosis.
There also is the worry about rapid systemic absorption of the lidocaine. In general, I’ve not found them to be incredibly helpful in children, but if you’re not worried about other causes, and you need to modify the kid’s pain to sort of help them convince that it’s their stomach and esophagus as a source of the pain, then it could be worth trying.
I mentioned again that the diagnosis is based on history and physical. If they’ve been dealing with chronic symptoms, And there’s an abrupt worsening, or again, the child has red flag symptoms, then you probably do want to get some labs, such as the CBC, check the HNH, lipase, renal panel, liver profile, and ESR and CRP.
Like a kid with normocytic anemia and an ESR of 140, that ain’t gastritis. I’d be worried about inflammatory bowel disease, for instance. Plain films are generally not helpful unless you suspect obstruction or foreign body ingestion. And then, only a radiopaque foreign body. A CT scan can show some signs of liver disease or pancreatitis, but the HNP followed by targeted labs is a more safe and judicious approach.
Now, ultrasound is useful if you suspect gallbladder disease, but the patient needs to be NPO for six to eight hours before the procedure. This will that the gallbladder is distended, which improves the accuracy of the ultrasound in visualizing gallstones or sludge or other abnormalities. So, a kid with mild symptoms, and you want to rule out gallbladder disease?
Like, you can totally order this as an outpatient. You don’t need to make them wait in the ED for six to eight hours. Have a detailed discussion with the patient and family and do shared decision making in terms of interventions, the GI does, and again, these will be the gold standards. Endoscopy, upper GI and endoscopy is the gold standard for diagnosing gastritis.
You see direct visualization of the gastric mucosa and you take biopsies, which can rule out helicobacter pylori or eosinophilic esophagitis or eosinophilic gastritis. Non invasive H. pylori testing, like stool antigens or a urea breath test, can be helpful for diagnosing H. pylori, especially in cases of chronic or recurrent symptoms.
But, being on a PPI can make these tests less accurate. So really, scope is still the way to go. In the end, the most common diagnoses are All of these kids with gastritis like symptoms are going to end up is functional dyspepsia. This is chronic or recurrent pain and discomfort centered in the left upper abdomen without any identifiable structural or biochemical abnormalities upon medical examination.
Gastritis is, once again, inflammation of the stomach lining, which is only truly identified with endoscopy and biopsy. And yes, I called this episode gastroesophageal reflux and gastritis because it’s a colloquial term, but it’s important to make the distinction that ultimately these kids should be labeled as their symptom or dyspepsia in the ED and then followed up with their primary doctor or GI if necessary.
And many of us will ask about H. pylori. And it’s more common in adults, but it’s actually pretty rare in kids. So unless someone living in the home with a kid has an active infection is being treated. it’s probably not going to be H. pylori in the kid. And still, GI would recommend that we don’t start empiric antibiotic treatment in the emergency department anyway, because it’s best to diagnose that with a scope.
So in the odd, rare scenario where you have a family member being treated for H. pylori and a kid with symptoms, I wouldn’t actually start them on a PPI and instead refer to GI for definitive diagnosis. Other things on the differential include peptic ulcer disease, Again, that’s something that really you’ll pick up on endoscopy, but a kid looks like they’re bleeding out, I’d be worried about it, and they are coming in.
It’s also worth mentioning that gastroparesis and delayed gastric emptying can also cause symptoms of dyspepsia. So what are some other important causes of abdominal pain that you should differentiate from dyspepsia and gastritis? And by differentiate, I mean both ask the right questions and tell the family that you are not worried about them.
First, pancreatitis. So the pain in pancreatitis is typically more severe, constant, can radiate to the back, unlike the more intermittent pain of gastritis. Patients will have more nausea and vomiting and some systemic signs like fever or tachycardia. Elevated lipase can make the diagnosis, though Ultrasound or CT can show some pancreatic inflammation.
Gallstones can be seen in adolescence. Pain in the right upper quadrant or epigastric pain. It’s often described as colicky, worsened by fatty meals. Ultrasound, as I noted before, is the diagnostic test of choice. And peptic ulcer disease from duodenal ulcers improves with food, but then worsens several hours later.
Whereas gastric ulcers may worsen shortly after eating, similar to gastritis. Endoscopy will make the diagnosis. And then there’s celiac disease. So celiac disease can cause dyspepsia symptoms as well. Celiac disease is a true autoimmune disorder triggered by the ingestion of gluten. It’s a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye.
In individuals with celiac disease, gluten intake leads to an immune mediated inflammatory response that damages the small intestine’s mucosal lining, specifically the villi. It kind of blunts them down. This impairs nutrient absorption and can lead to a variety of GI symptoms. So if somebody says, I’m not eating gluten because I don’t feel like it or because I want better hair.
Maybe I should try that. That’s not celiac disease. Celiac disease is an immune process. So dyspepsia is a symptom that can occur in celiac disease, and so if you take a history that things worsen upon eating gluten, or what happens if the patient has eliminated gluten from their diet, which is something that I’ve seen many families do on their own.
And it’s not within the scope of this episode, but the anti tissue transglutaminase antibodies, TTG, IgA, that’s the most sensitive and specific initial test for celiac. All right, let’s start to talk about now the management of dyspepsia and gastritis. Dietary and lifestyle changes are the first line treatment.
They can significantly improve symptoms. It’s important that we communicate to patients and families how optimistic we are that these can make a difference. So avoid trigger foods, spicy and fatty foods, acidic foods and beverages like citrus fruits and carbonated drinks. Caffeine and chocolate, and even dairy products if you suspect lactose intolerance.
You want to encourage eating of small, frequent meals. That allows you to digest the gastric contents a little more efficiently. Chew your food thoroughly. Don’t swallow things like a snake. That reduces the swallowing of air and aids digestion. And avoid late night eating, especially two to three hours before bedtime.
No bedtime snacks for these kids. Kids should stay well hydrated, adequate water intake, and limit sugary drinks like juice and pop that can irritate the stomach. Gatorade. That’s a big offender that I’ve run up against. Stress management is really important because stress can exacerbate symptoms, deep breathing, meditation, biofeedback, regular physical activity promotes healthy digestion, and avoiding secondhand smoke because tobacco smoke can irritate the stomach lining.
If you want some symptomatic relief, you can use antacids. They neutralize stomach acid and provide quick relief from symptoms. So Tums, or calcium carbonate, you chew it and it neutralizes existing stomach acid. It’s quick, short term relief. If you take way too many of them, you can get constipation or hypercalcemia.
Maalox, which is aluminum hydroxide and magnesium hydroxide, it’s two antacids, and it can balance side effects maybe, I don’t know. That also provides symptomatic relief. It’s a little bit gritty, but you drink it. And there are pediatric formulations. If you take a lot of it, magnesium can cause diarrhea, and aluminum can cause constipation.
I don’t know if those balance out at all. I haven’t tried it. Then you have your H2 receptor antagonists, or H2 blockers. These medications reduce stomach acid production by blocking histamine receptors in the stomach lining cells. So you’ve got things like famotidine or pepsid. Runitidine or Zantac was commonly used, but it’s been withdrawn from the market due to some safety concerns.
Lomatidine will decrease acid secretion, and it’s effective for mild to moderate symptoms, and it starts shortly after taking it, and is generally well tolerated. The next step up are proton pump inhibitors. These are more potent acid suppressants, and they block the enzyme responsible for acid secretion itself, as opposed to just the pump.
You’ve got drugs like Prilosec, which is Omeprazole, Prevacid, which is Lansoprazole, or Nexium, Esomeprazole. They all work fine and there’s some pediatric formulations which you can look up and sometimes insurances will take one and not the other, again, beyond the scope of this episode. These are prescribed for more severe symptoms or when H2 blockers are ineffective.
Follow pediatric weight based dosing and know that it does take three to four days before the suppression starts working. Long term use could affect nutrient absorption of like magnesium or vitamin B12. And being on a PPI as opposed to being on an H2 blocker can, as I mentioned earlier, alter the results of an endoscopy.
So if you think a kid’s going to need a scope, don’t start a PPI. Or you can stop the PPI if they’re going to get a scope within the next one to two weeks. Let me talk about one more medication that I’ve used occasionally. And so it’s sucrophate or carophate. This kind of acts like a protective barrier over the stomach lining that can aid in healing.
It’s kind of like putting, like, spackle over the stomach. It just kind of blocks everything up and tamps down the symptoms. It’s a viscous, adhesive substance, and it can adhere to ulcer sites as well. This is really short term treatment for more severe pain. You would administer this on an empty stomach, usually an hour before meals, or when a child is having severe symptoms not around the time of meals.
If you use a lot of it, it can cause constipation or interfere with the absorption of other daily medications. So fortunately, most of the kids with dyspepsia, or kids that you think will ultimately be diagnosed with gastritis, will be able to be discharged home. So first and foremost, recommend dietary and lifestyle modifications.
For You could start a daily proton pump inhibitor and explain to the family that it takes three to four days before it starts working. If they want more immediate relief or the symptoms are mild, you consider using an H2 blocker instead. For mild intermittent symptoms, consider adding Tums if they like to chew a tablet or Maalox if they’d rather drink a liquid.
And for a step up to more severe symptoms, suggest the use of sucrophate and intermittently and judiciously. You should have the child follow up with their primary care doctor often after about 10 to 14 days on the acid blocking regimen that you prescribed. If they’re doing better and they’ve made diet and lifestyle modifications, the primary doctor at that point can discuss how long to maintain therapy and develop an exit strategy.
A trial of four to eight weeks would be reasonable. But if they’re not improving, And that could be a cause for referral to gastroenterology. It’s important in the ED to not over promise that, oh yeah, you’re going to see GI. Kids can get better on what we recommend. You should trust that. So don’t immediately refer to GI unless you’re worried about a bleeding ulcer or another diagnosis like inflammatory bowel disease or celiac or eosinophilic esophagitis because every time they swallow chicken and steak it gets stuck in their esophagus.
Remember, our community pediatricians, family medicine doctors, are brilliant. They can handle this problem. But if a child has those red flags, or if you’re concerned they need immediate intervention, by all means, get them to a pediatric center for admission and GI evaluation imminently. And again, I will say it yet one more time, because most of these kids have not yet had endoscopy with biopsy, I would not recommend using the diagnosis gastritis.
And I did put it in the title, but it’s what most people call it, and perhaps this was a bridge to education. Use symptoms as your diagnosis. Abdominal pain, nausea, early satiety, or probably most appropriately, call it dyspepsia. These kids are having indigestion. Don’t minimize it. It is having a significant impact on their daily lives.
They kept whining about it. They came to the ED. And it is tempting to call it gastritis because it seems more significant or impactful, but Avoiding making a presumptive diagnosis does not minimize the symptoms the child is having. Instead, use this as a teachable moment and link your interventions with your expected symptom improvement.
Alright, so we know that gastroesophageal reflux and gastritis are linked. really dyspepsia, are common yet distinct causes of GI symptoms in pediatric patients. Recognizing the key features of these conditions and differentiating them from other causes of epigastric pain, such as pancreatitis, gallstones, and ulcers, is crucial in providing appropriate management.
Thank you for listening to this episode. I hope you were able to pick up some new pearls that you can take back to your next clinical shift. If you have any feedback on this episode or would like to suggest content for a future episode, send it my way. I’ll take an email, a comment on the blog, a direct message on X or another social media platform.
And my kids will remind me to say, like, rate, and review. That’s so more people can find the show and continue to learn. For PEM Currents, the Pediatric Emergency Medicine Podcast, this has been Brad Sobolewski. See you next time.
