Page 118 - Effects and Efficacy of (Laparoscopic) Gastrostomy Placement in Children - Josephine Franken

studies and gastric emptying studies. Median follow-up time after GP was 4.6 months (IQR 3.7 – 5.6).
Figure 1. Flowchart of patient inclusion.
A total of 50 patients were included with a median age of 3.4 years (IQR 1.4 – 5.6). Patient characteristics are described in Table 1. The main underlying disease as a cause of feeding difficulty was NI (75.0%), which was clinically manifested as psychomotor retardation, epilepsy, spasticity, visual impairment and/or hypotonia. Out of 50 included patients, 10 caregivers of patients (20.0%) did not fill out the postoperative PedsQLTM questionnaire resulting in missing data on HRQoL.
Table 1. Patient characteristics (n=50).
Demographics
n (%)
Male gender
29 (58%)
Median (iQR)
Age at operation
3.4 (1.4 – 5.6)
Main underlying morbidity
Neurologic impairment
29 (58%)
Cystic fibrosis
4 (8%)
Congenital cardiac disease
2 (4%)
Undiagnosed growth retardation
2 (4%)
Pulmonary disease
2 (4%)
Short bowel disease
1 (2%)
Legend: IQR = interquartile range
Health-related quality of life after gastrostomy placement
HRQoL results before and after operation are shown in Table 2. These scores are based on the observed data (n=40). Although the total score and all of its subdomains increased after GP, not all changes were statistically significant. The first row of Table 2 presents the estimated change in HRQoL after GP, adjusting for all other variables in the model. After GP, there was a non-significant increase in total HRQoL score of 2.8 points on a 100-point
116