Is surgical treatment of lipoblastoma always necessary?

Lipoblastoma is an uncommon, benign mesenchymal tumor with an excellent prognosis despite its potential to local invasion and rapid growth. However, in the literature, a spontaneous resolution has never been reported, and, consequently, the need for a complete surgical excision has never been questioned. The authors report a case of a 2-day-old boy with congenital diffuse lipoblastoma in the left thigh, which forced us to withhold from surgical treatment to avoid the risk of mutilation in a patient so young. The lesion was followed-up by imaging, and a complete spontaneous resolution of the diffuse lipoblastoma was shown by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at 1-year follow-up. In the literature, a complete surgical excision is recommended. The results of this case suggest that a "wait and see" approach is justified at least in infants with huge invasive lesions requiring a mutilating excision.

[Indicators of continuous improvement of the transfer of neonatal emergency cases in the Trento province]. / Indicatori di miglioramento continuo delle cure dopo valutazione dell'attività di trasporto primario d'emergenza neonatale in provincia di Trento.

The nursing personnel of the Neonatology Unit of Trento Hospital cares for the transportation of newborns in the Trento Province (more than 7500 transportations have been performed to date). Aim of the study is the evaluation of the quality of care as documented in the ad hoc neonatal transportation data-bank. A further goal is the formulation and validation of simple and easy to collect indicators of "improvement of care". Examples of indicators used to assess the activities of the years 1996 and 1997 were the number of transportations with functioning equipment; the number of newborns with body temperature registered; the number of transportation cards correctly filled out. These simple indicators allowed to identify areas where the quality of care could be improved. The cause-effect diagram used allowed the involvement of all the nursing personnel in the identification of problems and of possible solutions. An example of the process followed for identifying and preventing hypothermia is presented and discussed.

Intestinal absorption of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids in preterm infants fed breast milk or formula.

The importance of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPs) in the development of preterm infants is now well accepted but the source of dietary LCPs to be added to infant formulas remains controversial. We measured dietary intakes, fecal output, and percentages of intestinal absorption of n-6 and n-3 LCPs in healthy preterm infants fed exclusively preterm breast milk (PBM; n = 20), formula without LCPs added (NLCPs; n = 19), formula with LCPs derived from phospholipids (PL-LCPs; n = 19), or formula with LCPs from triacylglycerols (TG-LCPs; n = 19). Intestinal absorption of arachidonic acid was not different in the four groups but docosahexaenoic acid was better absorbed from PL-LCPs than from PBM (88.3 +/- 1.8% compared with 78.4 +/- 4.0%, P < 0.05) Total absorption of n-6 LCPs was not different between groups but total n-3 LCPs were better absorbed from PL-LCPs than from PBM or TG-LCPs (88.7 +/- 1.9%, 79.2 +/- 4.4%, and 80.4 +/- 2.2%, respectively). In conclusion, docosahexaenoic acid and arachidonic acid were absorbed as efficiently from TG-LCPs formula as from breast milk fat. Absorption of docosahexaenoic acid and n-3 LCPs was greater from PL-LCPs formula than from PBM or TG-LCPs formula.

Plasma and red blood cell fatty acid of very low birth weight infants fed exclusively with expressed preterm human milk.

The fatty acid composition of plasma phospholipids, triglycerides, sterol esters, and red blood cell phospholipids were determined at birth and again on d 7, 14, and 28 of life in 22 very low birth weight infants (birth weight 1180 +/- 290 g, gestational age 29.8 +/- 2.4 wk) fed exclusively with preterm human milk starting from the first hours postpartum. Milk intake was recorded daily, and intakes of fat and individual fatty acids were measured weekly. The intakes of linoleic acid and linolenic acid rose significantly during the study period, so did their incorporation into plasma and red blood cell lipids. The intakes of arachidonic acid (29.2 +/- 2.4 versus 30.4 +/- 2.1 mg.kg-1.day-1) and docosahexaenoic acid (18.8 +/- 1.7 versus 17.0 +/- 1.2 mg.kg-1.day-1) on d 14 and 28, respectively, were not different; however, their plasma levels declined significantly. The percentages of arachidonic acid declined in all plasma and red blood cell lipids, whereas the fall of docosahexaenoic acid was more notable in triglycerides and sterol esters, intermediate in plasma phospholipids, and less pronounced in red blood cell phospholipids. We conclude that very low birth weight infants fed exclusively with preterm milk, which unlike most preterm formulas contains long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, exhibit declining levels of arachidonic acid and docosahexaenoic acid from birth up to 28 d of life.

Development of a screening system for cystic fibrosis: meconium or blood spot trypsin assay or both?

High blood trypsin levels during early days of life are found in newborns subsequently diagnosed to be affected by cystic fibrosis. The authors compared the validity of the traditional meconium test with the blood immunoreactive trypsin (IRT) assay, carried out in parallel on 113,302 neonates from three regions of North-eastern Italy. The meconium test showed a sensitivity of 57.7%. The sensitivity of the IRT test was higher (96.1%). It was possible to identify by IRT 10 out of 11 false negative CFs at the meconium test. A shortcoming of neonatal IRT, however, is its low specificity; 1.6% of the newborns had to be retested. A new screening policy was therefore proposed and carried out on 69,640 newborns: the Lactase test (LACT) on meconium was introduced as a complementary assay in IRT positive newborns. If LACT exceeded 2 U/g dry meconium, a confirmatory sweat test was immediately requested; if LACT test was negative and IRT exceeded 85 micrograms/l, IRT was repeated. Postneonatal retesting values above 25 micrograms/l required a sweat test. As a result, the estimated prevalence of CF was 1:4,352, the sensitivity was 93.3%; the specificity turned out to be 99.6%, considering all false positive newborns investigated with retesting and/or direct sweat test.

An evaluation of an enzyme immunoassay method for immunoreactive trypsin in dried blood spots.

A novel monoclonal antibody based enzyme immunoassay (EIA) method for the measurement of the human cationic trypsinogen (NeoScreen, AGEN Biomedical Ltd., Acacia Ridge, Australia) in dried blood spots for the neonatal screening of cystic fibrosis was evaluated. The calibration standards provided as dried blood spots by AGEN are highly unstable and must be replaced with user prepared materials. Reference values from control individuals were obtained by parametric methods. A preliminary comparison with a polyclonal antibody based RIA method (Trypsik, SORIN Biomedica, Saluggia, Italy) was performed. Regression analysis between the RIA and the EIA methods gave a coefficient of correlation of 0.58 for RIA values less than 40 micrograms/L and of 0.77 for RIA values greater than or equal to 40 micrograms/L. Average CV of the within-run imprecision for the EIA method was 19.6% and for the RIA method 28.8%. CVs of the between-run imprecision at low, intermediate and high values for the EIA method were 23.7%, 15.8%, 15.6% and for the RIA method 20.6%, 14.4%, 11.2%. The diagnostic accuracy analyzed by a Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curve of the RIA method gave a maximum accuracy of 190.9 while that of a simulated ROC curve for the EIA method was 193.0. We found that the precision and the diagnostic accuracy of the EIA method (AGEN) are equal to or better than those of one of the RIA methods.