Post written by Marleena Repo, MD, from the Tampere Centre for Child Health Research, Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, the Department of Pediatrics, and the Celiac Disease Research Center, Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University, Finland.

We investigated systematically for the first time the diagnostic yield of gastrointestinal endoscopies in a large cohort of anemic children who had undergone endoscopies with systematic biopsy sampling.

Gastrointestinal disorders are considered a common cause of anemia; international guidelines advise conducting endoscopies in cases of unexplained anemia, but the actual diagnostic yield of upper and lower endoscopies in anemic children are unclear. Optimal targeting of endoscopies would be particularly important in children in whom general anesthesia is required for these invasive procedures.

Our results showed anemia to significantly increase the likelihood of diagnoses in endoscopy, particularly when accompanied by certain specific symptoms and/or laboratory findings. By contrast, anemia as a sole clinical finding was a poor predictor for a diagnosis even in the long term, supporting a high threshold for endoscopic studies in such cases.

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