Clinical Evaluation of Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: To obtain basic data on cyclic vomiting syndrome(CVS) and clinical findings of CVS. METHODS: Fifteen patients diagnosed as CVS from April 1995 to July 1999 were enrolled in this study. RESULTS: Among 15 children with CVS(11 boys, 4 girls), 4 patients were put in the migraine group and 11 patients in non-migraine group. The onset age ranged from 7 months to 11.4 years(mean 5.5 years). The prodromal symptoms of the migraine group were headache, flank pain and unpleasant feeling, and those of the non-migraine group were abdominal pain and dizziness. Vomiting began at characteristic times specific for each individual in 73% of patients; in the migraine group, 75% had syrnptoms on arising in the morning. In the non-rnigraine group, 36% were wakened during the night and 27% had symptoms on arising in the morning and 9% had episodes beginning at other characteristic tirnes and the rernaining 27% at no characteristic times. Durations of episodes were of fairly uniform length and mostly between 2 days and 10 days. In regards to precipitating factors, stress was the most frequently mentioned and other reported precipitants included infections, and sensitivity to food and hot or cold weather. Continuous vomiting causes ketosis, electrolyte irnbalance, poor growth, peptic esophagitis and other cornplications, including learning problems and psychosocial dysfunction. Both groups had positive response to prokinetic agents. CONCLUSION: There was no clinical differences between the migraine group and non-migraine group. The response to therapy was poor, but the response to prokinetic agents was better than that to anti-migraine agents.