A Profile of Tropical Sprue

Tropical Sprue is an enigmatic malabsorption syndrome which occurs among people living in the tropics. 1 It is a syndrome of unknown etiology characterized by intestinal malabsorption, chronic diarrhoea and nutritional deficiency was recognized in India a number of centuries before by Charaka. 2 We aimed to describe the clinical profile of Tropical Sprue in our centre.MethodsThe data were collected retrospectively from the admission files of department of gastroenterology PSG hospitals, Coimbatore during the period Jan 2011 Jun 2011 (6 moths).ResultsA total of 50 patients were included among which 32 were males and 18 were females. The mean age of the patient was 46 years and mean duration of the symptoms was 6 months. Loose stool was the most common clinical presentation followed by weight loss. The mean hemoglobulin level was 8.2gdl and D-Xylose test was abnormal in all the patients. Histology of duodenal biopsy showed villous atrophy with intra epithelial lymphocytes in lamina propria. . ConclusionTropical sprue still exists in India and is one of the important cause for chronic diarrhoea and malabsorption.