Psychiatric disturbance associated with epilepsy in a tertiary health service in Sudan

Co morbid psychiatric Disorders are common in epileptic patients. This relationship had not been studied before in Sudanese patients. To study the common psychiatric disturbances and their correlates among epileptic patients attending a tertiary health service in the Sudan. Sixty two patients with idiopathic epilepsy were submitted to psychiatric assessment using the General Health Questionnaire [GHQ], a semi-structured questionnaire and direct clinical assessment. Thirty patients [48.4%] of them emerged as probable psychiatric cases. Severity of epilepsy showed a slightly less strong correlation with the GHQ score. Social class [P<0.05], together with vocational, educational [P<0.05] and social relations difficulties [p<0.07] showed significant correlation with the GHQ score. The study showed that psychiatric co-morbidity is a common complication of epilepsy that is related to severity of epilepsy and social stress of being epileptic

Effect of sodium valporate [SVP] on male gonads and fertility

To study the effect of SVP on both premature and mature male gonads and on male fertility via valid animal models. The study included control "non-medicated" [15 premature and 15 mature] male rats and medicated [15 premature and 15 mature] male rats on effective dose of SVP [200 mg/kg/day] via oral administration for one month and two months. Five rats of each group were sacrificed after one month of treatment together with their controls. Another five of each were sacrificed after two months. The remaining five rats in each group "premature and mature" survived for another one month without SVP intake and then sacrificed. Mating was allowed by pairing between each male rat and a female rat with normal esterous cycle for 10 days and this repeated 3 times in each group. The testes of each sacrificed male rat were dissected out, weighed and examined macroscopically. Epididymal spermatozoal examination [progressive motility of sperms, sperm cell concentration, sperm apnormalities and living sperms] and histopathological examination of testes were done. Sodium valporate reduces fertility% of male rats and this reduction increased with the duration of treatment. The weights of testes [in both premature and mature] were significantly reduced in medicated groups. The epididymal sperm characters were markedly altered in medicated mature rats while azospermia was encountered in medicated prematures and prematures recovered from treatment for one month. Also the degenerative changes of the testes were more marked in prematures. There was reversibility of these effects on stoppage of SVP. Sodium valporate reduces male fertility and induces degenerative changes in male gonads especially in premature on longer duration of treatment and these pathological effects are reversible on its stoppage

Radiographic and electromyographic study of patients wearing complete overdentures with two different types of attachments

This study was carried out on twenty patients having edentulous maxillary jaw against mandibular jaw which had two retained teeth one on each side. The patients were divided into two groups. For group A an overdenture retained with flexi-post [resilient] attachment was constructed while for B an overdenture retained by post and core [rigid] was constructed. These two types of overdentures were studied by evaluating their effects on alveolar bone, residual ridge and on the electromyographic activity of masseter muscle. All these examination were done at the time of insertion, after 6 months and after one year. The results of this work showed no significant difference between the two groups in all readings