OBJECTIVE: To present a review about inflammatory bowel diseases in childhood so that pediatricians become familiar with two diseases (ulcerative colitis and Crohn s disease) that are increasing in incidence. METHODS: Articles of specific gastroenterological journals were analyzed. Information was also obtained from the author s extensive professional experience in the area. RESULTS: The two di...

The death of a child can have a devastating effect on the family. The pediatrician has an important role to play in supporting the parents and any siblings still in his or her practice after such a death. Pediatricians may be poorly prepared to provide this support. Also, because of the pain of confronting the grief of family members, they may be reluctant to become involved. This statement giv...

OBJECTIVE To discuss clinical and laboratorial evaluation of heart murmurs in children, an important problem faced by pediatricians in their practice. SOURCES This review was based on a critical analysis of the current literature, as well as pediatrics and pediatric cardiology textbooks, which were found to be an important source of information on the subject. SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS It is ...

W O YEARS AGO one of us received a call from a T pediatrician concerning a 3-year-old Jewish child with asymptomatic splenomegaly. The diagnosis of Gaucher disease was suspected, and he had heard that the diagnosis could be established enzymatically from a blood sample. We assured him that this was, indeed, quite simple to do. The next day we received a blood sample, and the following morning c...

The Down Syndrome child in need of treatment is a medical ethics paradigm. In a film distributed by the Kennedy Foundation, for example, a Down Syndrome newborn is allowed to starve to death because his parents will not consent to surgery to correct a duodenal Artesia. And it is to detect and abort fetuses affected with Down Syndrome (trisomy 21) that amniocentesis is most often used. Down Synd...

Oral health is an integral part of the overall health of children. Dental caries is a common and chronic disease process with significant short- and long-term consequences. The prevalence of dental caries for the youngest of children has not decreased over the past decade, despite improvements for older children. As health care professionals responsible for the overall health of children, pedia...

OBJECTIVE It is suggested that patients with constipation should be screened for celiac disease. Similarly, it is recommended to investigate these patients for hypothyroidism and hypercalcemia. However, no evidence for these recommendations is available so far. We therefore set out to determine the prevalence of celiac disease, hypothyroidism, and hypercalcemia in children with constipation. ...