Ocular findings on follow-up in children who received phototherapy for neonatal jaundice.

BACKGROUND: To evaluate the ocular findings in children between 3 and 5 years of age who had received phototherapy in the neonatal period and to investigate whether they had phototherapy-related permanent ocular damage clinically. METHODS: The phototherapy group (n = 57) consisted of children who had undergone phototherapy for at least 24 h, and the control group (n = 43) comprised children who had not received phototherapy. Ophthalmic examinations consisted of assessment of visual acuity, convergence near point, ocular movements, ocular alignment, dynamic retinoscopy, cycloplegic refraction and biomicroscopic examination of anterior segment and posterior segment (using a 90 D lens in the latest). RESULTS: All children were orthophoric and had normal eye movements. A significant difference was found between the phototherapy group and control group regarding convergence near point 3.0 (2.0-5.0) vs 3.0 (2.0-5.0) (p = 0.018), right cycloplegic spherical equivalent 1.0 (0.0-3.0) vs 0.75 (0.0-4.75) (p = 0.011) and left cycloplegic spherical equivalent 1.0 (0.075-3.0) vs 0.75 (0.0-5.25) (p = 0.006).The study groups were similar according to cycloplegic spherical and cylindrical refractions. However, no significant difference was found between the groups regarding the need for eye glasses. CONCLUSION: Although there were significant differences between the phototherapy and the control groups according to the convergence near point and right and the left eye cycloplegic spherical equivalent, the similarity between the groups regarding the need for eyeglasses suggested that difference was clinically insignificant.

Re-emergence of genotype G9 during a five-and-a-half-year period in Turkish children with rotavirus diarrhea.

This study was done to understand the dynamics of rotavirus genotype distribution in Turkish children. Samples were collected from January 2006 through August 2011 from children at a hospital in Ankara. Rotavirus was detected in 28 % (241/889) of the samples. Genotype G9P[8] was predominant (28 %), followed by G1P[8] (16.3 %) and G2P[8] (15.9 %). G9 was absent in the samples from 2006 and 2007 and then re-emerged in 2008 and increased gradually. Phylogenetic analysis showed that Turkish G9 rotaviruses of the present study formed a sublineage with strains from Italy and Ethiopia, possibly indicating spread of a clone in these countries.