Guillain barre syndrome in Iraqi children

Seventy children with acute infective polyneuropathy [GBS] who appeared at age of 6 months-12 years, were admitted to Al-Mansor children teaching hospital in the period from January 1989-December 1993, the mode of presentation, complications and outcome of the illness were studied. It was found that 45 of them were males and 25 were females, antecedent event, were found 1-3 week prior to the necrologic illness in 61 out of 70 patient. 38 patients had both lower and upper limbs weakness, 32 of them only had lower limb weakness only, cranial nerves were involved in 26 patients. Sensory symptoms were observed in 51 patients, the autonomic nerve involvement was found in 10 patients cerebrospinal fluid protein was raised in 48 out of 68 patients, one patients died because of respiratory paralysis, respiratory muscles were involved in 17 patient, 11 of them required ventilator setting

Childhood brucellosis in Baghdad

One hundred and fifty-two cases with brucellosis were included in our study, 7 mo- 14 year of age, to illustrate the epidemiological, clinical, and laboratory findings and treatment In addition to official data from Ministry of Health [M.O.H] concerning Brucellosis in Baghdad and Iraq, brucellosis is endemic in Iraq, with much higher incidence than reported by MOM. There has been nearly one case of brucellosis for every one thousand child admitted to Baghdad hospitals irate than half of them were from Baghdad City residents and main source of their infection most probably was the consumption of milk products. Males were more affected than females with peak incidence in July. The predominant presenting features were fever, sweating arthralgia. anorexia, fatigue, splenomegaly, hepatomegaly, lymphadenopathy, and anemia [blood transfusions were given to 7 patients]. Complications presented arthritis, pulmonary. hepatic and renal. The diagnosis in the majority of cases depends on Rose Bengal agglutindon test. Different duration and combination of antibiotics were used for the treatment of brucellosis

Visual disorders associated with cerebral palsy

Ninety children with cerebral palsy were examined in the ophthalmic and paediatric clinics, Medical City Teaching hospital in Baghdad during the years 1984 and 1985. This group of children ranged in age from 9 months to 10 years and were moderately to severly disabled. The most frequent type of ocular defect was that associated with external ocular movement, of these 67% had gross strabismus [squint], 23% had nystagmus and 3% had gaze palsy. Refractive error with or without squint was found only in 40% of them and there was a high incidence of strabismic and anisometropic emblyopia with 11% of them had a normal eye and ocular adnexae. It has been found that there is no strong connection between the different types of cerebral palsy and the various forms of strabismus, and the type of strabismus is more or less independent on the stage of refraction