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New diagnostic tools for dehydration severity in children
Dehydration from diarrhoea, either from viral infection or cholera, accounts for 10 percent of all child deaths worldwide. Though it
Music and stories kids choose themselves lessen their pain after major surgery
Pediatric patients who listened to 30 minutes of songs by Taylor Swift , Rihanna and other singers of their choosing — or audio books — had a significant reduction in pain aft er major surgery, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study.
The children, ages nine to 14, chose from a playlist of top music in different genres including pop, country, rock and classical. Short audio books were another option in the study.
A strategy to control post-surgical pain without medication is important because opioid analgesics — most commonly used to control post-surgical pain — can cause breathing problems in children. Thus, caregivers usually limit the amount of opiods prescribed, and children
Home births lead to higher infant mortality at least for mothers living in poorer areas
Home births lead to higher infant mortality than hospital births, at least for mothers living in poorer areas. This is the conclusion of a new study conducted by N. Meltem Daysal (University of Southern Denmark and IZA), Mircea Trandafir (University of Southern Denmark and IZA) and Reyn van Ewijk (VU University Amsterdam and University of Mainz) that examines 356,412 low-risk Dutch women who delivered between 2000 and 2008 and who were allowed to choose between a home and a hospital birth.
The safety of home births for low-risk women is a hotly debated topic in the Western world. In this context, the Netherlands stands out as one of the few developed countries with a health care system geared toward home births, with more than half of all low-risk deliveries taking place at home. This makes it one of the best settings to study the safety of home births.
The study shows that home births lead to higher infant mortality among the poorer half of Dutch women. The researchers suggest that the infant mortality rate may be lower in hospitals because of the availability of advanced medical treatments (such as neonatal intensive care units). In the richer half of the Dutch population, on the other hand, home births are as safe for the child as hospital births. The researchers suspect that low-income women profit from hospital births because it is more difficult to assess whether they are low-risk or high-risk, for example due to a more difficult communication with their midwife.
One of the major challenges when investigating the effect of home births is that even among low-risk women, those who give birth at home or in a hospital may have different risk factors, with riskier deliveries usually taking place in the hospital. Therefore, babies born in a hospital often have more health problems than babies born at home and simple comparisons of these two groups are misleading.
In the present study, the researchers came up with an innovative solution to circumvent this problem. They noticed that some women gave birth at home or in a hospital depending on how far they lived from the nearest obstetric ward. The researchers then compared two groups of low-risk women who were identical, except that the women in one group had a higher probability of delivering in a hospital only because they lived closer to a hospital.
This study demonstrates that home births can lead to higher infant mortality for certain women, even in a country where the health care system is geared toward home births. In the context of the Netherlands, these women are those who live in the poorer half of the country and whose decision to deliver in a hospital or at home is affected by how far they live from the nearest hospital. The authors emphasize that no conclusion can be drawn for other groups. VU University Amsterdam
3D image may provide better size match for child heart transplants
A new 3D computer modelling system may significantly improve a surgeon
Project launched that uses stem cells to treat brittle bone disease in the womb
A trial that uses stem cell injections to treat osteogenesis imperfecta, more commonly known as brittle bone disease, prior to and just after birth has been launched by teams at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and the UCL Institute of Child Health (ICH) in collaboration with colleagues across Europe.
By carrying out genetic screening in pregnant women whose baby is suspected of having severe osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), babies identified with the condition may be treated with a stem cell that increases the production of collagen in the body. This then reduces the number of painful bone fractures a child experiences once born.
OI affects around one in 15
Primary surgery is associated with survival benefit in patients with advanced cancers of the throat
Patients with cancers of the mid- and lower throat may have higher survival rates if their initial treatment includes surgery, according to new research presented to the 2015 European Cancer Congress.
Researchers told the Congress that a nationwide study in Taiwan found that, five years after diagnosis, radical surgery was associated with significant overall survival benefits among patients whose cancers of the throat had started to spread. However, fewer than half of the patients in the study received surgery.
Dr Chih-Tao Cheng, MD, a medical researcher at the Koo Foundation Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center in Taipei City, Taiwan, said:
Leadless pacemaker study assesses safety and efficacy
A leadless cardiac pacemaker showed
New method of closing the incision during scoliosis surgery nearly eliminates infections
Patients with scoliosis who undergo surgery may be less likely to develop an infection or other complications after the procedure when a novel wound closure technique pioneered at NYU Langone Medical is utilized, according to new research.
In this new technique, surgeons use a multi-layered flap closure that enables doctors to close several layers of muscle and fascia while maintaining blood supply from the donor site to the recipient site. The researchers believe this new method reduces complication rates by eliminating
Operating theatre time, where does it all go?
In this single centre study, the authors assess the accuracy of surgeons and anesthetists in predicting the time it will take them to complete an operation or procedure and therefore explain some of the difficulties encountered in operating theatre scheduling. The study was set in operating theatres at a level 1 trauma centre serving a population of about 370 000. Participants were 92 operating theatre staff including surgical consultants, surgical registrars, anesthetic consultants, and anesthetic registrars. Participants were asked how long they thought their procedure would take, and this was compared with actual time data recorded at the end of the case. General surgeons underestimated the time required for the procedure by 31 minutes, meaning that procedures took, on average, 28.7% longer than predicted. Plastic surgeons underestimated by 5 minutes, with procedures taking an average of 4.5% longer than predicted. Orthopedic surgeons overestimated by 1 minute, with procedures taking an average of 1.1% less time than predicted. Anesthetists underestimated by 35 minutes, meaning that, on average, procedures took 167.5% longer than they predicted. The authors conclude that the inability of clinicians to predict the necessary time for a procedure is a significant cause of delay in the operating theatre. This study suggests that anesthetists are the most inaccurate and highlights the potential differences between specialties in what is considered part of the