Digestive comorbidity in pediatrics
Authors: Kharitonova L. A. , Grigoriev K. I. , Osmanov I. M. , Borzakova S. N. , Skorobogatova E. V. , Shashel V. A. , Matalaeva S. Yu. , Shurygina D. A. 
Published: March 2021

Rationale. In recent decades, the number of children has increased with chronic diseases characterized by systemic lesions and frequent involvement of the digestive tract, complicating the diagnosis and choice of therapeutic strategy. As the number of diseases in a child increases, the cost of diagnosis and treatment grows exponentially. Given the comorbidity, physicians prescribe multiple medications (polypragmasy), which can lead to adverse effects.

First-line physicians often lack the knowledge about the clinical and therapeutic features of managing comorbid patients. Practical healthcare lacks a “team strategy” for these patients’ treatment, leading to ineffective management of patients by subspecialist physicians significantly affecting the prognosis of the disease and even the life of the patient. The “narrowly specialized” model of medicine is inadequate. An integrative model of healthcare should replace it. Meanwhile, there are currently no international and national recommendations for this problem focused on the needs of “first line” physicians, including pediatric specialists. All the above urged us to provide an in-depth study of this problem in the current literature.

The aim of this literature review was to study the frequency and structure of comorbid conditions in pediatric practice to optimize their diagnostics, therapeutic tactics, and the development of preventive measures.

Results and discussion. The structure of comorbidity differs in different age categories. The comorbidity in children depends mainly on the genetically programmed disorders of metabolism and functioning of cells and tissues, disorders of nutritional status, infectious factors, and interference (pathogenetic relationship of diseases). Understanding the etiology and pathogenesis of comorbid conditions in children, one should identify the Chronic Noncommunicable Diseases formation risk groups and develop a plan for their prevention. Prevention of comorbid chronic noncommunicable diseases should be carried out as part of the “full life cycle”, from the antenatal period (the health of the future mother) to adolescence, using an integrative approach (impact on the child’s physical and mental condition) with teaching patients and their parents the basics of proper diet, healthy lifestyle, sufficient physical activity, and positive attitude.

Knowledge of causal and complicated comorbidity will contribute to the development of optimal diagnostic tactics for the search of the root cause and the selection of efficient therapy for trigger disease, which will avoid polypragmasy. The pediatric physician should play the primary role in the follow-up of comorbid patients. It is necessary to expand the competencies of the pediatric physician with the revision of approaches to his professional training.

The development of clinical guidelines and algorithms for the management of comorbid patients and the collaboration of physicians of various specialties (formation of multidisciplinary teams), while observing the principle of “one doctor”, will significantly improve the quality of medical care for comorbid patients, which will improve their quality of life and significantly decrease the cost of rehabilitation measures.