Acute gastroenteritis. Changing pattern of clinical features and management.

During seven epidemics of rotavirus from 1978 to 1987, 575 children younger than 3 years were admitted to hospital with acute gastroenteritis. The management before and during hospitalization, the status on admission and the outcome are reviewed. The mean age of the patients rose significantly during the study period, with the proportion younger than 12 months decreasing from 50 to 26%. Mild to moderate iso-osmolal dehydration was found in most cases, both hypernatraemia and hyponatraemia were rare. The home management had usually consisted of fasting except for "clear fluids". Oral rehydration and rapid feeding in hospital according to modern principles accelerated weight gain, shortened the duration of diarrhoea and the hospital stay and reduced the requirement for intravenous fluid therapy. This experience, together with the current rarity of acute gastroenteritis in young infants and of delay in recovery, suggests that oral rehydration and realimentation should be more extensively used in general practice.