Özet:

Objective Vertigo is a complaint consisting of wide spectrum of diagnoses in childhood. The aim of this study was to evaluate clinical characteristics and differential diagnosis of pediatric patients with vertigo. Material and Methods In this retrospective study, the medical records of a hundred patients who presented to the Pediatric Neurology Outpatient clinic with the complaint of vertigo between January 2018-January 2021 were reviewed. Patients were evaluated for age, gender, family history, duration of symptoms, frequency of attacks, provoking factors, accompanying symptoms, physical examination, laboratory findings and final diagnosis. Results The mean age was 12.39 years. The majority of the patients were males (64%). There were different causes of vertigo, but the most common two were infection (34%) and psychogenic vertigo (25%). The other frequent reasons were orthostatic hypotension (16%) and vitamin B12 deficiency (9%). Most of the patients had symptom duration for less than one month (46%), and the attacks were primarily seen (65%) every day. Patients explained their attacks as the motion of the surrounding (61%), spinning (27%), imbalance (20%), and others. The most common accompanying symptoms were fatigue (60%) and headache (54%). Laboratory data revealed vitamin B12 deficiency in nine patients; all other tests were in the normal range. Thirty-nine patients had cranial MRI, only 2 of them revealed abnormal findings, one of them was responsible for vertigo. Conclusion Vertigo in children creates a profound sense of anxiety both in parents and physicians leading to excessive number of functional testing and imaging examinations. Evaluation should begin with detailed history and comprehensive physical evaluation to avoid superfluous testing and diagnostics. Serious cases are fortunately rare and can be detected by careful clinical examination.

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