Sickle cell infections among Saudi children

In this study, a total of 350 pediatric patients with sickle cell anemia was admitted to the Pediatric Ward of Military Hospital of Sharourah in the Southern Region of Saudi Arabia. Thirty-three patients had a major infection [septicemia, meningitis or osteomyelitis] with an incidence of 9.4%. During the same period of the study, a total of 3400 non-sickle children was admitted and 35 of them had a major infection with an incidence of 1%. Three patients died in the sickle cell group with a case fatality rate of 9.1%, while one patient in the control group died with a case fatality rate of 2.9%. Salmonella species were responsible for 11 cases of septicemia and 3 episodes of osteomyelitis and Streptococcus pneumoniae was the source in 7 cases of septicemia and one case of meningitis in sickle cell disease cases. Meningitis was caused by different organisms, such as Streptococcus pneumoniae, Salmonellae and Meningococci

Ultrasonographic evaluation of gastric emptying time in malnourished infants: the effect of type of meal

Ultrasonographic gastric emptying time [GET] using both liquid and semisolid meals was measured on 27 malnourished children [10 marasmic infants, 10 marasmic Kwashiorkor infants and 7 Kwashiorkor infants] and 15 healthy infants; all of them aged 7-24 months. The statistical analysis of the results showed that there was a highly significant delay of the half gastric emptying time of the marasmic and marasmic Kwashiorkor group to both the liquid and the semisolid meals as compared with the control group and the delay of half gastric emptying time of semisolid meals was much more than that of the liquid meal. On comparing the KWO group with the control group, there was no statistically significant delay of half gastric emptying time of the liquid and semisolid meals