Retinopathy in Egyptian patients with sickle cell disease: A cross-sectional study.

ABSTRACT: Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a disorder that causes red blood cells to become sticky and rigid. Sickle cells can block blood flow in small blood vessels depriving the eye of oxygen and cause damage. This is called sickle retinopathy that can progress to severe proliferative sickle cell retinopathy, bleeding into the eye, detachment of the retina or even loss of vision.To assess ocular manifestations and detect frequency of retinopathy in patients with SCD.Cross-sectional study was conducted on 32 patients with SCD. They were 22 males and 10 females with mean age of 12 years. Routine investigations as well as ophthalmological examination including visual acuity, fluorescein angiography and optical coherence tomography were done.We found that 8 patients (25%) suffered from proliferative retinopathy, 10 patients (31%) showed tortuous retinal veins, while 14 patients (44%) were normal. All patients showed macular thinning on optical coherence tomography examination.We concluded that frequency of retinopathy in patients with SCD is more than expected and it was higher in patients who started transfusion at a later age. More attention should be paid for this problem and close observations and follow up is strongly needed.

Status of serum magnesium in Egyptian children with type 1 diabetes and its correlation to glycemic control and lipid profile.

Diabetes mellitus has been suggested to be the most common metabolic disorder associated with magnesium deficiency, having 25% to 39% prevalence. This deficit could be associated with the development of late diabetic complications, especially macroangiopathy.We aimed to evaluate the status of serum Mg in children with type 1 diabetes and assess its relation to glycemic control and lipid profile.We included 71 Egyptian children with type 1diabetes having their follow-up at Pediatric Endocrinology outpatient clinic, Zagazig University Hospital and 71 age- and sex-matched control. We measured Serum magnesium, HbA1c, and lipid profile in all study subjects.Diabetic children had significantly lower serum magnesium level compared to control children (1.83 ±â€Š.27 mg/dL in diabetic children versus 2.00 ±â€Š.16 mg/dL in control children). Taking cut-off level of serum magnesium <1.7 mg/dL for definition of hypomagnesemia, hypomagnesemia was detected in 28.2% of diabetic children compared to 9.9% of control children. In diabetic patients, there was statistically significant difference in HbA1c between hypomagnesemic and normomagnesemic group being higher in the low magnesium group, as it is mean ±â€ŠSD was 11.93 ±â€Š3.17 mg/dL in group I versus 8.92 ±â€Š0.93 mg/dL in the normomagnesemic group. Serum magnesium was found to be positively correlated with HDL (P < 0.001), and negatively correlated with age, HbA1c, triglycerides, total cholesterol, LDL, and duration of diabetes (P < 0.001).We concluded that total serum magnesium was frequently low in Egyptian children with type 1 diabetes and it is correlated with HbA1c and with lipid profile. Hypomagnesemia was more evident in patients with poor diabetic control and those with higher atherogenic lipid parameters. We suggest that low serum magnesium may be included in pathogenesis of poor glycemic control and abnormal lipid profile in children with type 1 diabetes. We need to perform further studies on giving magnesium supplements in diabetic children with hypomagnesemia to observe the effect of correction of serum magnesium on glycemic control, lipid profile, and the risk of diabetic complications.

Chemotherapy-induced neutropenia among pediatric cancer patients in Egypt: Risks and consequences.

Chemotherapy-induced neutropenia (CIN) is the major dose-limiting toxicity of systemic chemotherapy and it is associated with significant morbidity, mortality and treatment cost. The aim of the present study was to identify the risk factors that may predispose pediatric cancer patients who receive myelosuppressive chemotherapy to CIN and associated sequelae. A total of 113 neutropenia episodes were analyzed and the risk factors for CIN were classified as patient-specific, disease-specific and regimen-specific, while the consequences of CIN were divided into infectious and dose-modifying sequelae. The risks and consequences were analyzed to target high-risk patients with appropriate preventive strategies. Among our patients, 28% presented with a single neutropenia attack, while 72% experienced recurrent attacks during their treatment cycles. The mean absolute neutrophil count was 225.5±128.5 ×109/l (range, 10-497 ×109/l), starting 14.2±16.3 days (range, 2-100 days) after the onset of chemotherapy and resolving within 11.2±7.3 days, either with (45.1%) or without (54.9%) granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF). No significant association was observed between any patient characteristics or disease stage and the risk for CIN. However, certain malignancies, such as acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), neuroblastoma and Burkitt's lymphoma, and certain regimens, such as induction block for ALL and acute myelocytic leukemia, exerted the most potent myelotoxic effect, with severe and prolonged episodes of neutropenia. G-CSF significantly shortened the duration of the episodes and enhanced bone marrow recovery. Febrile neutropenia was the leading complication among our cases (73.5%) and was associated with several documented infections, particularly mucositis (54.9%), respiratory (45.1%), gastrointestinal tract (38.9%) and skin (23.9%) infections. A total of 6% of our patients succumbed to infection-related complications. Neutropenia was responsible for treatment discontinuation (13.3%), dose delay (13.3%) and dose reduction (5.3%) in our patients. The mean cost for each episode in our institution was 9,386.5±6,688.9 Egyptian pounds, which represented a significant burden on health care providers.