This post collects together the precis of the major articles – perspectives, leading articles and original articles – in the February 2008 issue.

Perspectives

Growth Hormone

Petrou and McIntosh look at the methods of improving concordance with growth hormone therapy. Here.

Safe Prescribing

Sammons and Conroy look at ways of improving safety of prescribing for children. Here.

Quality of Life

Rosenbaum reviews the area of measuring quality of life in children, with particular reference to a recent study published in the Lancet, SPARKLE. Here.

Leading Articles

Parenting

Stuart-Brown looks at the potential for promoting children’s wellbeing through measures which improve parenting. Here.

Syphilis

Chakraborty and Lack describe the increase in cases of syphilis being noted in the UK, and review the management of the condition in infants. Here.

Original articles

Growth Hormone

In a study using a technique called conjoint analysis, which looks at consumer choices, a series of families were able to make choices about the device required to deliver growth hormone. Here.

Rare diseases

Analysis of a register of childhood impairments in Northern France, 26% of affected children were suffering from diseases with a prevelance lower than 1 in 2000, and 36% had no diagnosis. Here.

Quality of life in quadraplegic cerebral palsy

Focus group interviews with parents of 21 children with quadriplegic cerebral palsy was used to identify themes and compare their views with those of healthcare professionals, highlighting the communication difficulties between the two groups. Here.

Monitoring

In analysis of data from 67 high risk infants monitored over a total of 3452 days, pulse oximetry was superior to impedence monitoring in detecting true events, although both had very high false positive rates. Here.

Traumatic Brain Injury

Of 117 survivors of severe traumatic brain injury admitted to an Australian PICU, 54 underwent screening or testing for pituitary dysfunction. Of these, 9 had pituitary dysfunction, 4 with multiple hormonal deficiencies. Here.

HbSC disease stroke risk

In 46 children with HbSC disease who underwent transcranial doppler, increased flow in the middle cerebral artery may predict increased risk of stroke – as it does in sickle cell disease. Here.

Kawasaki Disease

In Japanese children with Kawasaki disease whose condition did not respond to the first dose of intravenous immunoglobulin, pulse methylprednisolone was a helpful additional therapy. Here.

Short Reports

Growth Hormone

By assessing general practitioner prescriptions, of 75 children on Growth Hormone, 23% missed more than 2 injections per week, with factors such as short duration on growth hormone being associated with poorer concordance. Here.

ACE washouts

In a double blind, crossover trial in four children undergoing anterograde continence enema (ACE) washouts, water and twice normal saline caused electrolyte disturbances, whereas normal saline did not. Here.

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