Nutritional status of congenital heart disease [CHD] patients: Burden and determinant of malnutrition at university of Nigeria teaching hospital Ituku - Ozalla, Enugu

Children with congenital heart disease [CHD] are prone to malnutrition. This can have a significant effect on the outcome of surgery. Our objective was to determine the burden and determinant of malnutrition in children with several types of congenital heart disease [CHD]. This is a descriptive cross sectional study of children attending the outpatient clinic of UNTH, Ituku - Ozalla, Enugu State, over a six year period from March 2007 to April 2014. Data analysis was done with Statistical Package for Social Sciences [SPSS] version 19 [Chicago IL]. Forty thousand one hundred and twenty three [40,123] children attended the outpatient clinic during the study period. Of these, 50 had congenital heart disease, from which 46 were found to have various degree of malnutrition, giving a prevalence of 92% among children with congenital disease and 0.11% in the general population. Malnutrition showed significant correlation between age in years, age appropriate dietary adequacy and pulmonary hypertension. [r= 0.22, p = 0.01; r = 0.20, p = 0.02; r = 0.15, p = 0.01]. Children with CHD develop severe malnutrition and growth failure. The significant contributing factors are mean age at presentation and age appropriate dietary adequacy

Priapism in homozygous sickle cell patients: important clinical and laboratory associations

To evaluate the relationship between the occurrence of priapism and important steady-state clinical and laboratory parameters in homozygous sickle cell disease [SCD]. Subjects and Methods: Steady-state clinical and laboratory data were obtained from the medical records of 126 male patients seen in the clinic over a 7-year period. Estimated prevalence rates, correlation coefficients and independent t tests were calculated to assess the relationship between priapism and several important clinical and laboratory indices. Patient data on age, haemoglobin concentrations, the frequency of crises per annum, leucocyte counts, platelet counts, serum bilirubin and aspartate transaminase were evaluated. Results: The prevalence of priapism was determined to be 21.4%, and 22.2% of those affected had erectile dysfunction. There was a significant positive correlation between priapism and older age [p = 0.049] and lower leucocyte counts [p = 0.008]. There was no significant relationship with other clinical or laboratory indices. Conclusion: About 1 in 4 of all homozygous older SCD patients had pria- pism, and an approximately similar ratio developed erectile dysfunction; they also had lower steady-state leucocyte counts. Other clinical and laboratory indicators of disease severity in SCD did not positively correlate with the occurrence of priapism, and this may imply an alternative pathogenetic mechanism