Evaluation of polymorphnuclear leucocyte elastase as diagnostic tool in neonatal sepsis

Objectives: Neonatal sepsis is clinical syndrome of bacteremia with systemic signs and symptoms. Neonatal sepsis is still a leading cause of mortality in neonatal intensive care units all over the world. Early diagnosis and treatment of the newborn infant with suspected sepsis are essential to prevent severe and life threatening complications

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate polymorph nuclear [PMN] leucocyte elastase as a diagnostic tool in neonatal sepsis

Subjects and Methods: This study was conducted on 45 full term and preterm neonates suspected as neonatal sepsis compared to 45 apparently healthy neonate with matched age and sex, as a control group

Results: 55.6% of our patients group were full-term patients and 44.4% were preterm. All the patients were subjected to full history taking, full clinical examination, lab investigation including CBC, CRP, blood culture and sensitivity, and measurement of serum polymorph nuclear leucocyte elastase enzyme

Conclusion: Significant elevation of serum polymorph nuclear leucocyte elastase level in neonatal sepsis with high specificity

Pre-operative anxieties as perceived by hospitalized school age children

Hospitalization and surgery, are usually accompanied with severe stress which makes the child feels unable to perform his/her usual activities, and unable to act as his /her peers. Surgery causes the child to be immobilized and exposed to frequent painful procedures [Younghblut and Brooten, 1999; Manley, Bellman and Lumby, 2000]. The degree of anxiety experienced by children undergoing surgery is under investigated. So the aim of the current study was to identify the level of pre-operative anxiety experienced by hospitalized school age children. A descriptive exploratory research design was adopted to carryout the present study on a convenient sample of 30 hospitalized school age children [8-12 years] admitted to surgical unit in Specialized Pediatric University Hospital, Cairo University. Two tools were used to collect the required data, sociodemographic sheet and the Child Drawing Hospital Tool to measure the child level of anxiety, which designed by Clatwothy, Simon and Tiedeman [1999]. The results have shown that all children in the preoperative period had some degree of anxiety, 26.7 %of them had a very high level of anxiety. The study recommended that the pediatric nurse caring for children with surgical problems should follow through assessment of pre-operative anxieties experienced by children. And using different nursing strategies and approaches to enhance children coping abilities is paramount to good quality of childcare

Comparative study on valsartan [angiotensin II receptor antagonist] and benazepril and captopril [two angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors] in experimental animals

The renin angiotensin system is present in both circulating and tissue forms. Its ultimate product, angiotensin II, is among a diversity of substances that control blood pressure. In the present work, comparison between valsartan [AT[1] antagonist] and benazepril and captopril [ACE inhibitors] revealed the following: Valsartan [15 mg/kg/day], captopril [15 mg/kg/day] and benazepril [3 mg/kg/day] p.o. for 4 weeks in renovascular hypertensive rats induced significant reduction in systolic blood pressure starting from the first week of treatment. There was no significant difference among the three groups except in the fourth week when captopril and benazepril groups were significantly different from valsartan group. In isolated rabbit aorta, all the three drugs reduced the force of angiotensin-I induced contraction, significantly for valsartan and captopril and insignificantly for benazeprilat