[Proposal for a practical diagnostic management of the etiology of acute childhood diarrhea].

Acute childhood diarrhea is highly common in our country and its treatment include rehydration, the early dietary management and in few cases the use of antibiotics. At the same time, watery diarrhea is much more common than bloody diarrhea. The ideal in the management of infectious diarrhea is to identify the microorganisms that are producing the disease, however, it is very important to mention that in the majority of etiological studies done in our country, two were the more common identified microorganisms: Rotavirus and E. coli (in its different types). Usually and due to the high price of Lab. tests, we don't search those microorganisms and the majority of Laboratories used to report as a result, Salmonella, Shigella or negative. Normally, we receive the results of these cultures after few days and as we can understand these results are not necessarily useful in the early management of the disease and as we mentioned, these results will not include the more common pathogens. In this article we propose to perform three simple fecal tests in patients affected with acute diarrhea: 1) Count and differentiation of leucocytes; 2) Occult blood; 3) Reducing substances. If we play with these three results, it is not too difficult to suspect in the probable pathogen that is affecting our patient. In that concern, we propose this very simple, cheap and highly practical method for the etiological management of our patients that, of course, is not infallible, but our experience for many years have shown us that it is of great help for pediatricians in their daily work.