Reporting Diarrhoea through a Vernacular Term in Quechua-speaking Settings of Rural Bolivia.

Field studies often use caregiver-reported diarrhoea and related symptoms to measure child morbidity. There are various vernacular terms to define diarrhoea that vary across the local cultural contexts. The relationship between vernacular definitions of diarrhoea and symptoms-based definitions is not well-documented. This paper describes the association of the vernacular Quechua term k’echalera with the symptoms-based standard definition of diarrhoea in rural Bolivian settings. During a cluster randomized trial in rural Bolivia, both signs and symptoms of diarrhoea and reports of k’echalera were collected for children aged less than five years. Reported k’echalera were found to be associated with important changes in stool frequency, consistency, and presence of blood and mucus. Reported k’echalera were highly related to three of four recorded categories of watery stool. The intermediate (milk-rice) stool consistency, which fits into the definition of watery stool, was not strongly related to k’echalera. Mucus in the stool was also associated with k’echalera; however, its presence in k’echalera-free days accounted for at least 50% of the possible false negatives. The sensitivity and specificity of the term k’echalera were estimated by Bayesian methods, allowing for both symptoms of diarrhoea and reports of k’echalera to be subject to diagnosis error. An average specificity of at least 97% and the sensitivity of at least 50% were obtained. The findings suggest that the use of k’echalera would identify fewer cases of diarrhoea than a symptom-based definition in rural Bolivia.

IgA B and T cells in the intestinal villi of immunodeficient rats orailly treated with thymomodulin

Previous studies on the effect of the oral administration of bacterial immunomodulators (IM-104 and RN-301) during the protein free diet period, have shown an increase on B and T cell gut repopulation, accompanied by IgA antibody production. The usefulness of oral administration of the immunomodulator thymomodulin (TmB) during the protein refeeding period was investigated. TmB allowed the recovery of a normal repopulation of gut lamina propria with IgA B and CD5 T cells and decreases to control values the number of activated intraepithelial lymphocytes (CD25+T cell subset). Therefore, the oral administration of TmB may be useful as a therapeutic agent as it seems to improve the repopulation of intestinal villi with immunocompetent cells. Also, it seems to regulate the immunosurveillance at the epithelium level as it increases the CD5+T cells but decreases the activated ones.

Glaucoma inducido por corticoides / Corticoide's glaucoma induced

Un uso inadecuado e indiscriminado en forma topica y con menor frecuencia en forma sistemica de esteroides, puede levar la presion intraocular en personas, con predisposicion genetica o con factores de riesgo, simulando un Glaucoma Primario de Angulo abierto, que se presenta con mayor facilidad enpacientes con antecedentes anormales de Humor Acuoso. Diagnosticado el Glaucoma o la elevacion de la Presion Intraocular, debera suspenderse de inmediato la administracion o aplicacion de esteroides y recurir a un tratamiento medico, caso contrario a uno quirurgico. Es por eso que es de vital importancia tomar medidas preventivas para el uso adecuado y racional de estos farmacos