It is thought that Helicobacter pylori infection may influence growth rate in children. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of H pylori infection in healthy Italian children, and to look for differences in height between infected and non-infected subjects. Two hundred and sixteen children, aged 3 to 14 years, were tested for H pylori infection by 13C-urea breath test. Centile v...

AIM To evaluate the prevalence of increased nuchal translucency (NT) in multiple pregnancies and its relation to fetal karyotype and pregnancy outcome. METHODS We measured fetal nuchal translucency (NT) in 6,338 women pregnant from 10+3 to 13+6 weeks by ultrasound and evaluated the prevalence of NT=95th centile in 115 multiple pregnancies, including 100 pairs of twins (70 dichorionic and 30 m...

Background: The umbilical cord is vital to the development, well being and survival of the fetus. A coil of the cord is defined as a complete 360 degree spiral course of umbilical vessels around Wharton’s jelly. Sonographically, the Umbilical Coiling Index (UCI) is defined as the reciprocal of the average distance between a pair of coils. Hypocoiled cords are those with UCI < 10 centile while h...

The ponderal index (PI) (g/cm3 X 100) was used to define the state of nutrition at birth of 47 light-for-date (LFD) term infants and to determine how intrauterine undernutrition influences growth during the first 6 months of postnatal life, at four age intervals: birth--4, 5--8, 9--12, 13--26 weeks. With the exception of one baby, each PI was less than 50th centile on the Miller and Hassanein s...

BACKGROUND To test the hypothesis that a high C reactive protein (CRP) concentration would predict recurrence of atrial fibrillation (AF) after cardioversion in patients taking antiarrhythmic drugs. METHODS 111 patients who underwent direct current cardioversion for symptomatic AF were enrolled. Blood was drawn for CRP determination before cardioversion on the same day. All patients were taki...

OBJECTIVE To define the range of neonatal weight loss in a population relative to feeding method. DESIGN Prospective observational cohort study. SETTING Maternity service providing geographically defined, community based newborn follow up. PARTICIPANTS 971 consecutive term newborns of birth weight > or = 2500 g during the first 2-3 weeks of life; 34 excluded (inadequate data). 937 include...

BACKGROUND The performance characteristics of surrogate insulin resistance (IR) measures, commonly defined as the top 25% of the measure's distribution, used to predict incident type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) have not been critically assessed in community samples. METHODS AND RESULTS Baseline IR was assessed among 2720 Framingham Offspring Study subjects by use...

OBJECTIVES To determine whether fetuses that slow in growth but are then born appropriate for gestational age (AGA, birthweight >10th centile) demonstrate ultrasound and clinical evidence of placental insufficiency. METHODS Prospective longitudinal study of 48 pregnancies reaching term and a birthweight >10th centile. We estimated fetal weight by ultrasound at 28 and 36 weeks, and recorded bi...

AIM Evaluation of cardiac structures requires a large study group for accurate data on normal values. The aim of the study was to obtain normal M mode echocardiographic values in a substantial sample of healthy term neonates and children to develop centile charts. MATERIALS AND METHODS Data were obtained over 2 years from a single center in Turkey, from 1200 healthy infants and children aged ...

A simple and parsimonious model which originated from the Weibull frequency distribution was proposed to describe nonlinear survival curves of spores. This model was suitable for downward concavity curves (Bacillus cereus and Bacillus pumilus), as well as for upward concavity curves (Clostridium botulinum). It was shown that traditional F values calculated from this new model were no longer add...