IVC Index in Patient With Diarrhea and Dehydration And How It Affects Its Management

Introduction The world health organization defines dehydration as condition that result from excessive loss of body water .the most common cause of dehydration in children are vomiting and diarrhea. Dehydration is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in infant and young children world wide .most cases due to consequence of acute gastroenteritis.

Pathophysiology. Dehydration cause decrease in total body water in both intracellular and extracellular fluid volume. Volume depletion closely correlate with sign and symptom of dehydration .the total body water is higher in infant and children compared to adult.

In infant, it is 70% of total body weight, whereas it is 65%and 60% respectively in children and adult.

The World Health Organization recommends assessing dehydration in children based on four clinical features: general appearance , eyes (whether they appear sunken), history of thirst , and skin pinch to assess turgor. However, these clinical signs may be subtle or non specific and thus have important limitations if used as independent predictors of dehydration. A more objective way to assess for dehydration using urine analysis has been implicated.

Additionally, studies on dehydration have shown urine analysis do not show sufficient sensitivity, Specificity or reliability [3, 4] and are typically only useful in children with moderate to severe hypovolemia.