A 3-year old boy from Hatton presented with generalised convulsions. He was the third child born to consanguineous parents. The antenatal and perinatal period of this child had been normal. At 3 months of age he developed generalised convulsions and was treated with phenobarbitone at the Nawalapitiya Base Hospital. However, subtle seizures persisted at a frequency of about 1 or 2 seizures a mon...

AIMS To investigate the immunoreactive trypsinogen (IRT) values above the usual 99th centile laboratory cut-off and determine the value of offering further testing to those infants with a markedly elevated IRT but no cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator (CFTR) gene mutation identified by the screening programme. METHODS All babies born in Victoria, Australia, between 1991 and 2003, were sc...

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to determine the effect of birthweight on prospective stillbirth risk. METHODS Cross-sectional study of singleton births in the United States from 2010 to 2012 from 32 through 42 weeks was conducted. Stillbirth risk was stratified by birthweight and gestational age adjusted for time from death to delivery. The primary outcome was the prospective still...

Infantile macrocephaly has a myriad of causes including megalencephaly, intracranial mass, and CSF disturbance.1 An 8-week-old infant presented with increasing head circumference. Antenatal ultrasound was unremarkable, with biparietal diameter and head circumference on the 50th centile at 20 weeks’ gestation. At birth, head circumference was on the 90th centile; no other abnormalities were reco...

Tests for growth hormone secretion SIR,-We were interested in the correspondence between Dr Addy and Professor Brook and Dr Hindmarsh on detecting organic illness through assessment of height velocity .' 2 The question, however, is academic and their arguments theoretical since, as we have recently shown, the assessment of height velocity in individuals is so imprecise as to be clinically meani...

INTRODUCTION To evaluate the performance of first trimester nuchal translucency scan screening among pregnant women in Nigeria. METHODS A prospective observational and questionnaire based study involving 510 pregnant women between 11(+0) and 13(+6) weeks. Routine counselling and nuchal translucency measurement was conducted using the FMF, London guidelines. Chorionic villous sampling was done...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study in pregnant women with hypothyroidism treated by levothyroxine is to examine the interrelations between thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), free thyroxine (FT(4)) and free tri-iodothyronine (FT(3)), and examine whether in such patients the treatment is adequate. METHODS This was a retrospective cross-sectional study. Maternal serum concentrations of FT(3), FT(4)...

INTRODUCTION Vital signs (blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, oxygen saturation and respiratory rate) are thought to undergo changes during and immediately after pregnancy. However, these physiological changes are not taken into account in the normal ranges, which themselves are not evidence-based, used in routine and acute care monitoring. We aim to synthesise the existing evidence base f...

Dimeric inhibin A was measured in maternal serum samples from 45 pregnancies affected by trisomy 21 and 493 samples from unaffected pregnancies at 10-14 weeks of gestation. Inhibin A levels in affected pregnancies were compared with levels of free beta-hCG and PAPP-A in the same series. In the trisomy 21 group, the median multiple of the median (MoM) inhibin A was not significantly elevated (1....

Ultrasound and pulsed Doppler can assist in confirming impaired placentation looking at fetal biometry and umbilical artery Dopplers. The authors recommend confirmation of fetal wellbeing at 28-30 weeks with a PAPP-A level below the first centile.