In a cohort of 89 Malawian children with malnutrition 84 (96%) had echocardiographically measurable pericardial effusion on admission, of which only 16 had TB, which was previously thought to be an underlying cause for the effusion. 

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A national audit of UK asthma admissions over a seven year period demonstrates improvements in asthma managment.  Here. 

In families who have experienced sudden infant death, other risk factors can be used to predict the possiblity of subsequent sudden infant deaths.  Here.

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I’ve been working on commissioning a new series for ADC E&P, the idea of which is to help paediatricians better understand the tests that they are using. It will explain the background to the test, their strengths and, perhaps more importantly, their weaknesses. It will pin down what the test can and cannot answer. The idea is to give the competent paediatrician the confidence to request or use the test when it can make a difference, and also to avoid using it when it can’t answer the question being asked. The articles will be written to a strict brief, so that once you’ve got used to the structure it should be easy for you to rapidly find what you need.  You can see the instructions to authors here.

I’d be happy have suggestions for future articles; you can leave them as a comment here.

Put it this way: if you’ve ever sat and thought: “Now, why did they go and do that test on this patient? It doesn’t help at all” then there could be an “Interpretation” article in it. more…

This post collects together the precis of the major articles - perspectives, leading articles and original articles - in the June 2008 issue. more…

Perspective:  Ekelund asks if we are measuring the right thing when we attempt to measure children’s physical fitness.  Here.

Perspective:  Choonara looks at the recent moves by the World Health Organisation to improve safety in children’s medicines.  Here.

Leading article:  Fewtrell and colleagues discuss how much loss to follow up is acceptable in studies.  Here.

Leading article:  Desguerre, Nabbout and Dulac review the current management of infantile spasms.  Here.

You might like to know that ADC has put up its first ever podcast, a discussion between Ian Balfour-Lynn and Harry Baumer about developments in respiratory paediatrics. It’s here. Feel free to leave comments here, or you can email our editor in chief; his email address is on that page.