Treatment of subglottic stenosis with CO2 laser excision and topical application of mitomycin C

Twenty patients were gathered from El Menoufiya university hospital with subglottic stenosis caused by laryngoscleroma. The patients were divided into two groups group [A] and [B] .Patients were treated by CO2 laser excision of subglottic stenosis and topical application of mitomycin C high concentration 10 mg/ml group [A] and low concentration 0.4 mg/ml group [B]. seven patients in group [A] and six patients in group [B] get improved after single surgical procedure. One patient in each group get impoved after two surgical procedures. Two patients in group [A] and three patients in group [B] undergone three surgical procedures with no improvement

Prevalence and role of respiratory viruses in the etiopathogenesis of acute otitis media

Aim: To investigate the prevalence of various respiratory viruses in middle ear effusion [MEE] and nasopharyngeal specimen in 54 children with recurrent acute otitis media [AOM] with effusion who had failed to improve after antimicrobial therapy and to determine the incidence of respiratory syncytial virus [RSV] as one of most common respiratory viruses in AOM

Methods: Middle ear effusion [MEE] samples collected at the time of tympanostomy tube placement from 54 children with recurrent acute otitis media were subjected to reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction [RT-PCR] to detect the presence of RSV genomic sequences. Also MEE and nasopharyngeal specimens were subjected to viral and bacterial cultures and to detect viral antigens. The viral cause of the infections was also assessed by serologic studies of serum samples obtained during the acute illness and convalescence

Results: Viral infection was detected in 43 out of 54 children [79.6%], RSV was isolated from 57.1% of patients by viral culture and antigen detection and from 81.5% by RT-PCR

Conclusion: Viral infection particularly RSV either alone or concurrent with bacteria is present in larger percentage of children with recurrent acute OME than previously suspected. PCR has proved to be more sensitive and specific than viral cultures and immunoassays in the detection of viruses in specimens. This would be helpful in guiding the use of preventive measures such as RSV vaccine

Role of interleukin-18 in allergic rhinitis

The role of IL-18 has not been well studied in allergic rhinitis. Few studies demonstrated up- regulation of IL-18 in nasal discharge of allergic rhinitis patients. The persistence of elevated IL-18 concentrations until after the season suggests a role for this cytokine in persistent allergic inflammation. In this study, we tried to through light on this role in patients with allergic rhinitis by investigating whether polymorphism is present in the coding regions of the IL-18 gene and, if so, to further analyze the association between polymorphism and allergic rhinitis in a case-control study. Blood samples were collected from 32 patients and 8 healthy controls matched by age and sex. Every patient was subjected to skin prick test [SPT] to confirm the clinical diagnosis and to detect the causative allergen[s]. Sera from the patients and controls were analyzed by using PCR single-nucleotide polymorphisms [SNPs]. There was a significant difference of IL-18 gene polymorphism at position -137 among allergic rhinitis patients and controls. The frequency of the -137C allele was significantly higher among allergic rhinitis patients as compared to the controls. We concluded that IL-18 gene polymorphism may represent an important susceptibility biomarker for the increased susceptibility to allergic rhinitis. This study reinforced the need for in-depth analysis of immune dysregulation of patients with allergic rhinitis arid point to the potential usefulness of cytokine-based therapy