RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 P05 Long-term effects of acute malnutrition on growth and body composition in malawian children JF Archives of Disease in Childhood JO Arch Dis Child FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health SP A2 OP A3 DO 10.1136/archdischild-2015-308599.5 VO 100 IS Suppl 3 A1 N Lelijveld A1 A Seal A1 J Wells A1 R Heyderman A1 M Nyirenda A1 M Kerac YR 2015 UL http://adc.bmj.com/content/100/Suppl_3/A2.2.abstract AB Aims Severe Acute malnutrition (SAM) is an important cause of child mortality worldwide and most treatment to date has focused on reducing those deaths. However, with emerging evidence that early nutritional adversity affects adult health, it is vital that treatment strategies also start looking beyond short term outcomes at programme discharge. To do this, improved evidence on the long term implications is needed; in this study, we examined growth and body composition 7 years after an episode of SAM. Methods We present latest data from a follow-up of 462 ex-malnourished Malawian children, comparing their growth and body composition to both siblings and age/sex matched community controls. These are the known survivors of an original cohort of 1024 children admitted to a large Malawian nutrition ward, from 2006 to 2007, for treatment of SAM. The current round of follow-up is 7 years after the original episode of malnutrition. Linear regression is used to analyse interim anthropometric data. Results To date, 321/412 (78%) of searches have been successful. Median age of the ex-malnourished ‘case’ children was 9 yrs 2 months (range: 7–20 years). 79/321 (25%) are HIV positive; 35/321 (11%) died in the last six years. Cases are significantly more stunted and underweight than community controls. Waist-hip ratio was significantly higher for cases suggestive of adverse body composition, however skinfold thickness ratio (subscapular+waist/tricep) was not significantly different between the groups. Sitting height ratio was also significantly higher for case children suggesting that torso length has been preserved and limb growth compromised. In addition, ex-malnourished case children had evidence of functional impairment with their hand-grip strength significantly weaker than that of community controls. Table 1 presents further details. Conclusions These results indicate that SAM may be associated with a number of adverse long-term effects, including stunting, abnormal body composition and functional impairment. It will be crucial to identify effective strategies, not only to prevent SAM in the first place, but to improve long-term outcomes in SAM survivors. Interventions might include more proactive case finding to encourage earlier detection and continued follow-up after the initial treatment to support high risk children and families. Abstract P05 Table 1 Linear regression of cases vs community controls