Levels of lithium in serum and in scalp hair of the criminals and persons with violent behavior

30 patients with criminal and violent behavior from different Egyptian jails and 20 normal age and sex matched persons were selected to serve as control group. Hair and serum lithium levels were determined by atomic absorption spectrophotometer for criminal and control persons. A statistically significant low serum and hair lithium levels were found in the criminals compared to the normal persons, whether the criminal behavior was associated with or without motivations for the crime. This finding may be of important social and therapeutic impact, lithium should be tried to control aggressive and criminal behaviors, especially in professional and chronically aggressive persons

role of mycoplasma pneumonia in acute exacerbation of chronic suppurative otitis media

This study was done on 60 patients, aging 3 - 18 years, attending the ENT Outpatient Clinic, and suffering from acute exacerbation of chronic suppurative otitis media in the form of sudden otorrhea from dry tympanic perforation. Complete ear, nose and throat examination, pure tone audiometry, chest examination, bacteriological study of the ear discharge for mycoplasma and other organisms, and serological examinations for the IgG mycoplasma pneumonia by the ELISA technique were done. 30 patients were serologically positive for IgG mycoplasma, of them 10 [16.7%] patients showed positive cultures for mycoplasma pneumonia. In this study, it was postulated that mycoplasma pneumonia plays a role in acute exacerbation of chronic suppurative otitis media. The commonest age affected was below 9, it has no specific clinical picture, no specific otoscopic picture, no specific hearing affections. Mycoplasma pneumonia can be found in combination with other organisms. In this study, it was postulated that blood born infection may play a role as a route to ear infection with mycoplasma pneumonia

Comparative study and evaluation of tonsillectomy operation by dissection and by diathermy knife

Sixty patients were selected to benefit from tonsillectomy. Thirty of them were operated upon by the dissection method and the other thirty patients by diathermy. It was found that diathermy is preferred in decreasing the operation time and the intraoperative blood loss, but the reactionary hemorrhage is more prevalent, secondary hemorrhage is equal in both methods, trauma to mucosa and pillars in case of diathermy occurred only in the initial cases, which means that training decrease the percentage of trauma

Role of aspiration of middle ear effusions prior to ventilation tube insertion

The aim of this study was to assess the role of middle ear aspiration for clearance of middle ear prior to ventilation tube insertion. This work was done on 36 children aged from 4 to 13 years with bilateral middle ear effusion. They were assessed before surgery by clinical examination, pure tone audiometry and impedance audiometry. Each child underwent bilateral myringotomy with aspiration of the right ear only and bilateral insertion of ventilation tubes. Postoperative follow up of the children 24 hours, one week and 3 months by clinical examination, audiometry and tympanometry showed no significant difference between the ears [the aspirated and non-aspirated] as regard hearing improvement, presence and patency of tubes. So, routine aspiration of middle ear prior to ventilation tube insertion is not necessary to avoid hazards of aspiration

Cerebral palsy: clinico-radiological correlation

Twenty one children with spastic cerebral palsy [CP] were examined with cranial CT. In 15 cases [71.4%], the CT findings were abnormal. The most frequent finding was brain atropy [53.3%]. Patients with CP of postnatal anoxia more often had pathological CT lesions than patients with other causes. CT changes were more in patients with epilepsy than in patients without. Cerebral infarction and atrophy were more frequent in patients with hemiplegia than in patients with other type of spastic cp