The Evaluation of the Children with Diagnosis of Acute Viral Hepatitis A

Objective: Hepatitis A infection is an acute, self limiting disease due to infection of the liver by hepatitis A virus, an enterically transmitted virus which is a member of the Picornaviridae family. The infection may be asymptomatic or may cause an acute hepatitis syndrome of varying degrees of severity up to and including fulminant hepatitis. We investigated the clinical and laboratory characteristics of cases with the diagnosis of acute hepatitis A.Material and Methods: In this study, 86 children who were diagnosed as acute viral hepatitis A in Dr. Beh et Uz Children’s Hospital Infectious Diseases Clinic were evaluated according to laboratory and clinical characteristics.Results: The most common symptoms were vomiting (66.3%), jaundice (54.7%), abdominal pain (%47.7) and weakness (36.6%). No significant difference was present between the age groups 1-5, 6-12 and over 12 years. Conclusion: Especially hepatitis A should be kept in mind in children with nonspecific complaints.