Articles: disease.
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Bull. World Health Organ. · Jan 1997
Clinical signs for the recognition of children with moderate or severe anaemia in western Kenya.
Optimal treatment of Plasmodium falciparum-related paediatric anaemia can result in improved haematological recovery and survival. Clinical predictors are needed to identify children with anaemia in settings where laboratory measurements are not available. The use of conjunctival (eyelid), palmar, nailbed, and tongue pallor to detect children with moderate anaemia (haemoglobin, 5.0-7.9 g/dl) or severe anaemia (haemoglobin, < 5.0 g/dl) was evaluated among children seen at an outpatient and inpatient setting in a hospital in western Kenya. ⋯ Low haemoglobin levels were significantly associated with the likelihood of being smear-positive for P. falciparum. This study demonstrates that clinical criteria can be used to identify children with moderate and severe anaemia, thus enabling implementation of treatment algorithms. Children aged < 36 months who live in an area with P. falciparum malaria should receive treatment with an effective antimalarial drug if they have pallor.
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This article presents an assessment of cervical cancer mortality trends in the Americas based on PAHO data. Trends were estimated for countries where data were available for at least 10 consecutive years, the number of cervical cancer deaths was considerable, and at least 75% of the deaths from all causes were registered. In contrast to Canada and the United States, whose general populations had been screened for many years and where cervical cancer mortality has declined steadily (to about 1.4 and 1.7 deaths per 100,000 women, respectively, as of 1990), most Latin American and Caribbean countries with available data have experienced fairly constant levels of cervical cancer mortality (typically in the range of 5-6 deaths per 100,000 women). ⋯ Overall, while actual declining trends could be masked by special circumstances in some countries, cervical cancer mortality has not declined in Latin America as it has in developed countries. Correlations between declining mortality and the intensity of screening in developed countries suggest that a lack of screening or screening program shortcomings in Latin America could account for this. Among other things, where large-scale cervical cancer screening efforts have been instituted in Latin America and Caribbean, these efforts have generally been linked to family planning and prenatal care programs serving women who are typically under 30; while the real need is for screening of older women who are at substantially higher risk.
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Baillieres Clin Neurol · Dec 1996
ReviewContraception, pregnancy and lactation in women with epilepsy.
Despite all of our advances women with epilepsy face obstacles when it comes to pregnancy and childbearing. Many of these obstacles are social, based on incorrect and inappropriate attitudes of the public towards persons with epilepsy. Unfortunately many of the uninformed public are health care providers. ⋯ The number of exposed women is so small that no pattern or estimates of risk can be determined at this time. Careful monitoring as is being performed by the Lamotrigine and North American Epilepsy and Pregnancy Registries will hopefully provide the necessary safety information in the near future. All of the risks aside, the majority of women with epilepsy can and will have healthy children.