Campylobacter-Enteritis bei Kleinkindern

Abstract

9 children with campylobacter enteritis aging from 3 days to 4 years were seen over a 8-month period. In 2 cases prompt recovery was achieved by erythromycin therapy. In the remaining 7 cases, the course was most often very mild, and symptomatic therapy was sufficient. Epidemiologically, the incidence of campylobacter enteritis is comparable to that of salmonella enteritis. Obviously, birds and poultry, but also dogs, cats, sheep and other domestic and farm animals are important sources of infection. Spread among human beings has also been made probable. The most frequent clinical features are fever, abdominal pain and bloody diarrhoea. Complications are most often associated with subspecies intestinalis whereas infections with subspecies jejuni almost exclusively cause enteritis. C. fetus is usually sensitive to erythromycin, tetracycline and aminoglycosides. The advantage of antibiotic therapy, however, has not yet been established.

Clinical and Laboratory Features of Yersinia, Campylobacter and Salmonella Infections in Children

“…Common occurrence of exudative diarrhoea has been described earlier for Yersinia (17,23) and Campylobacter (2,4,11,24) infections, and our data thus confirrn these reports. Presence of faecalleucocytes in a little less than one half of the Salmonella cases is also in accordance with a previous report (25).…”

“…Similarly, postinfectious complications such as arthritis are common in older children and adults, but rare in young children with diarrhoea (15,23). As for C. jejuni infections, exudative diarrhoea appears to be the major symptom in children and adults (3,4,11,24) but the disease may be milder in young children (21).…”

“…Shigella, Salmonella, Yersinia and Campylobacter are all regarded as invasive enteropathogens, and clinically exudative diarrhoea with the presence of faecal leucocytes, considered to be typical of shigellosis (I), has been also described in yersiniosis (8,17,23), campylobacteriosis (3,4,11,21,24) and salmonellosis (25). The purpose of the present study was to look for possible distinctive features in the clinical picture of Yersinia, Campylobacter and Salmonella infections in children.…”