Characteristics and quality of life of substance users and their caregivers.

The correlation between substance use and depression has been emphasized in the literature. Substance use disorders can also adversely affect the caregivers of drug-addicted persons. A cross-sectional study was conducted at the Special Hospital for Addiction Diseases in Belgrade in 2015 to analyze the characteristics, consequences, and health-related quality of life of drug users and their caregivers. The sample comprised 136 users of various substances, and 136 caregivers. A questionnaire on socio-demographic characteristics, the Short Form Health Survey 36 (SF-36), and Beck Depression Inventory were administered to all participants. According to multivariate logistic regression analysis, compared with caregivers, substance users were significantly more frequently male (P < .001), ≤ 39 years old (P < .001), and more frequently reported the use of sedatives (P = .009) and smoking (P < .001). Some level of depression was present in all participants, but severe forms were more frequent in substance users (P = .010). Among substance users, mean scores of SF-36 domains ranged from 56.62‒87.17, and among their caregivers, from 50.37‒75.07; however, the difference was significant only for the health change domain (P = .037), the score for which was lower in caregivers. Substance users suffered from more severe forms of depression compared to their caregivers, who had lower SF-36 scores in the domain of health change.

Accessory scrotum attached to a peduncular perineal lipoma.

In this study, we report on the case of a newborn boy diagnosed after birth with an accessory scrotum attached to a peduncular type of perineal lipoma without any other associated congenital anomalies. The neonate underwent a simple surgical excision of the lipoma and accessory scrotum in the first month of life, and his postoperative course was uneventful. Histologic examination revealed normal scrotal skin and adipose tissue. Accessory scrotum has a high incidence of association with perineal lipoma (83% of reported cases) and other urogenital and anorectal anomalies, but urogenital or anorectal anomalies were not seen in our patient.

Autism and hypoplastic corpus callosum in a case of monocentric marker chromosome 15.

An 8-year-old boy was diagnosed with autism, along with development delay, seizures, and hypoplastic corpus callosum. His karyotype was 47, XY, +mar.ish (15) (D15Z1+, SNRPN+, GABRB3+, PML-(de novo?). The supernumerary marker chromosome 15 with euchromatin was monosatellited and monocentric. Although autism, seizures, and mental and developmental retardation are not rare in association with a dicentric, bisatellited supernumerary marker chromosome 15, the present case is novel for a monocentric, monosatellited supernumerary marker chromosome 15 and the additional feature of hypoplastic corpus callosum. The present case provides support for the hypotheses that additional copies of different segments of proximal 15q are related to autism and to malformations of corpus callosum.