Pharmacoepidemiology of the probiotics use in infants

Aim: to obtain clinical data on the use of probiotic drugs in infants with functional gastrointesti-nal disorders (FGIDs). Patients and Methods: a retrospective cohort study was conducted on the basis of 7 medical in-stitutions in Moscow. Database of 502 case histories of children with diagnosed disorders of in-testinal microbiocenosis was formed. The children were divided into three groups depending on the probiotic agents and other medications for GI: group 1 — medications containing up to two probiotic strains in a composition; group 2 — medications containing more than two probiotic strains in a composition; group 3 — other medications for symptomatic treatment of FGIDs. Results: 259 case histories of infants were included in the study to analyze the data of the group with FGIDs. The ratio of boys and girls was 50%. In infants on artificial nutrition, the duration of the main symptoms (abdominal pain, flatulence, diarrhea, and changes in stool consistency) was significantly longer (p=0.0002). There was the lowest indicator of the symptoms’ maximum duration in the group of symptomatic treatment for GI without probiotic products. At the same time, the symptoms’ duration in this group differed from multicomponent probiotic medications (p=0.0031), but did not differ from the group of single- and two-component drugs (p=0.15). Adding that, there was a tendency to have differences between single- and two-component drugs and multicomponent ones (p=0.08). Conclusion: multicomponent probiotic medications do not always have the predominance over the single-component. It is necessary to provide a more rational approach to the targeted probi-otic therapy prescription with a possible preference for single-component drugs to avoid a num-ber of effects associated with the multicomponent probiotics use, such as antigenic load on the gastrointestinal mucosa, competitive interaction of strains. KEYWORDS: probiotics, functional gastrointestinal disorders, baby colic, retrospective study. FOR CITATION: Blokhin B.M., Prokhorova A.D., Lobushkova I.P. et al. Pharmacoepidemiology of the probiotics use in infants . Russian Journal of Woman and Child Health. 2020;3(4):309–317. DOI: 10.32364/2618-8430-2020-3-4-309-318.