Breast feeding and artificial feeding in infants with Tetralogy of Fallot

This work aimed to study the physical growth of 30 cases with TOF [26 males, 14 females] with age ranging from 14 days to 6 months, 20 cases were breast-fed and 20 cases were artificially-fed. This done by taking full history, clinical examination, anthropometric measurements [weight, length, head and chest circumferences and skin fold thickness]. Infants with TOF showed various degrees of growth retardation, which may be due to tissue anoxia, insufficient nutrient intake, malabsorption, hypermetablism, hypocellularity, dysphagia and recurrent respiratory tract infections. The study found no difference between breast and bottle feeding. Though breast feeding is the ideal method of feeding infants with cardiac problems, especially those with TOF due to the plenty of advantages of breast milk

Aspergillus species infection in respiratory diseases

This study had been carried on 100 patients with various broncho-pulmonary diseases, in addition to 40 apparently healthy controls. Direct microscopic examination of sputum and sputum culture for Aspergillus on sabouraud's dextrose agar and brain heart infusion agar were performed repeatedly. The mycological examination of sputum by direct microscopy showed that 10% of the studied cases were suggestive for pulmonary Aspergillosis. By culture, Aspergillus was isolated in 28% of cases The isolated Aspergillus species were in order of Frequency : A. niger [15%], A. fumigatus [7%], A. fumigatusus [2%] and a combination of A. niger and A. fumigatus in [4%] of the cases. It was found that males were more susceptible to Aspergillus infection than females. Thus, repeated demonstration of the same fungus in culture from successive sputum samples are in favour for the diagnosis of pulmonary A. spergillosis