Managing the common and rare in paediatrics.

http://www.sudanjp.org 4 Continuing its set goals towards the future well-being of children, this issue of the Sudanese Journal of Paediatrics (SJP) addresses management of the common and rare. The first review article highlights the causes, management and outcome of congenital hypothyroidism (CH), which is the commonest preventable cause of mental retardation worldwide. It also calls for a national screening programme in Sudan. Congenital hypothyroidism can result from maternal iodine deficiency which has been ascertained epidemiologically in Sudan since the 1960s [1]. Studies to document the aberrant thyroid function in children with goitre from Darfur, an endemic goitre region of the Sudan, were undertaken as early as 1975 and published in SJP in 1984 [2]. Among the authors of this article were Prof Mohamed Ibrahim A Omer (Ex-President of Sudan Association of Paediatricians, and former Editorin-Chief of SJP)[3]; and the Late Prof James H Hutchison [4] who was President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow from 1966 to 1968 and of the British Paediatric Association, 1969 to 1970. Considering primary causes of CH, thyroid dyshormonogenesis has also been highlighted in a previous issue of SJP [5]. Endemic iodine deficiency was also documented biochemically in Sudan since the 1980s [6,7], and the remarkably high prevalence of congenital and juvenile endemic hypothyroidism has been ascertained since early 1990s in Darfur Region [8]. It has been estimated that iodine deficiency affects yearly 200,000 children born in Sudan, 3% of whom may develop cretinism, 10% severe intellectual impairment and 87% less severe intellectual