A continuous 24 h esophageal pH monitoring, a non-agressive investigation technique in physiological circumstances, was performed in 200 asymptomatic infants between 5 days and 15 months old with a Memolog 600 system. During 24 h, 1 pH value every 7.5 s was stored in memory. Several parameters (refluxindex (RI), average duration of the longest reflux episode, number of all reflux episodes and those > 5 min) were studied in different groups of infants according to their age : 5–15 days old, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 15 months.For all parameters we obtained significantly different results in infants younger and older than 4 months The RI e.g. in newborns is 1.16%. This index increases to 1.78% at 1 month, to 2.53% at 2 months. At 4 months differences are significant (P<0.01 to RI at 2 months; P<0.001 to RI at 1 month or neonatal) as the RI reaches 4.21%. At 6 months RI is 3.22%, at 8 months 3.85%. At 15 months finally RI decreases to 2.55% (P<0.01 to RI at 4 or 8 months). Our data stress the importance to establish age-related ranges for physiologic GER incidence in asymptomatic infants.
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