[Evaluation of the nutritional status and growth of children with chronic HBsAg-positive hepatitis].

: Chronic hepatitis in children seems to have a better prognosis than in adults, with a discrete trend to spontaneous remission. Actually biopsy and liver enzymes are mandatory for a correct follow up of the disease, while few authors are interested in the assessment of growth and nutritional status. We think that an auxological approach is one of the main points in every chronic disease of the pediatric age, chiefly when some anabolic step might be affected. Our first result in a cross sectional study of growth and nutritional status in a selected group of untreated HBsAg+ chronic hepatitis children are as follows. According to enzyme values in the range of 16-171 UI/1 SGOT all patients are growing very well with a good-discrete nutritional status. Though anthropometric proteic nutritional status (muscle circumference) was in the range of normal distribution, we were able to show a moderate correlation between SGOT and muscle circumference (r = -0,50). Our impression is that some patients with a worse hepatic damage can be exposed at risk of proteic malnutrition which is a negative element in the prognosis of every chronic disease. Anthropometric auxology can detect degrees of proteic malnutrition, and can follow its development. So we recommend routine auxological assessment in all pediatric patients with chronic hepatitis.