Sensitivity and specificity of self-reported symptoms for exercise-induced bronchospasm diagnosis in children

Exercise-induced bronchospasm [EIB] is a common condition in elite athletes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic value of self-reported EIB symptoms in children. In a cross sectional study in 2005, all soccer player boys of 3 football schools of Shahr Rey a town in the south of Tehran, enrolled in this study. All subjects were asked for the presence of four cardinal symptoms of EIB [cough, wheeze, shortness of breath, chest pain/discomfort] during and after exercise. Self reported symptom-based EIB was defined as having at least two out of four symptoms. Findings were compared to spirometric criteria as a gold standard test. A total of 371 boys were enrolled in this study. The mean age of children was 11.67 +/- 1.53 years [range 7-16 years]. According to spirometric findings, 74 [19.9%] subjects had EIB. The sensitivity and specificity of self-reported symptoms for EIB diagnosis were 13.0% and 89.9%, respectively. Self-reported symptoms of EIB in children can be useful for epidemiological study. Our results in Iran are comparable with studies in other countries and point to a relatively high prevalence of EIB among athlete children

Imunochromatographic strip test detection of anti-rK39 antibody for the diagnosis of Kala-azar in an endemic zone of Bangladesh

A rapid immunochromatographic dipstick test [ICT] has become available for the qualitative detection of anti-Leishmania antibody using recombinant rK39 antigen. This study was carried out at the department of Microbiology of Rajshahi Medical College, Bangladesh, in order to evaluate the diagnostic potential of immunochromatographic dipstick test. A total of one hundred cases including 60 admitted patients with strong clinical suspicion of kata-azar and 40 healthy controls were investigated for the performance of the ICT Splenic smears were examined for microscopic detection of Leishman Donovan [LD] bodies obtained from the admitted patients only and smear-positive cases were considered as gold standard as well as confirmed cases of kala-azar. Out of 60 suspected patients, fifty three [88.33%] were found smear-positive and fifty nine [98.33%] were positive for immunochromatographic strip test. All smear-positive cases were also positive for strip test. Voluntary healthy controls [40], which included twenty persons from the endemic zone and twenty from non-endemic zone of kala-azar, were found all negative for the strip test. The sensitivity and specificity of immunochromatographic strip test were found to be 100.00% and 86.95% respectively. Present study findings again reinforce that the immunochromatographic strip test is a simple, reliable and easy-to-perform non-invasive diagnostic toot for visceral leishmaniasis in the endemic area of Bangladesh