Introduction: Breast cancer is the most common female cancer worldwide, affecting 13.5-30 per 100,000 women in sub-Saharan Africa. The most common histopathologic variants of breast cancer are those that originate from the glandular epithelium of the breast.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOral iron supplementation in iron deficient children with sickle cell anemia and normal transcranial Doppler ultrasound (TCD) velocities does not reduce arterial flow in the middle cerebral artery.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Malnutrition and sickle cell anemia (SCA) result in high childhood mortality rates. Although maternal depression is an established risk factor for malnutrition in younger children, little is known about its impact on treatment response in children with malnutrition. We aimed to determine the relationship, if any, between maternal depression scores and malnutrition treatment outcomes in older children with SCA.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPreviously, we demonstrated that older children with sickle cell anemia (SCA) living in Nigeria are at increased risk of death if they are underweight (weight-for-age z score < -1). We now conducted a cross-sectional study in low- and high-income settings to determine the risk factors for being underweight a in children aged 5 to 12 years with SCA. The children from low- and high-income settings were eligible participants for the Primary Prevention of Stroke in Children with Sickle Cell Disease in Nigeria (SPRING; N = 928) and the Silent Cerebral Infarct (SIT, North America/Europe; N = 1093) trials, respectively.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChildren with sickle cell anemia (SCA) living in Nigeria are at an increased risk of malnutrition, which contributes to increased morbidity and mortality. However, evidence-based guidelines for managing malnutrition in children with SCA are lacking. To address this gap, we conducted a multicenter, randomized controlled feasibility trial to assess the feasibility and safety of treating children with SCA aged from 5 to 12 years and having uncomplicated severe acute malnutrition (body mass index z score of <-3.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUndernutrition is a risk factor for under-5 mortality and is also postulated to be a risk factor for mortality in older children and adults with sickle cell anemia (SCA). We tested the hypothesis that underweight is associated with mortality in children aged 5 to 12 years with SCA. We performed a secondary analysis of participants in the Primary Prevention of Stroke in Children with Sickle Cell Disease in Nigeria trial, a double-blind, parallel-group randomized controlled trial for low-dose or moderate-dose hydroxyurea in children with abnormal transcranial Doppler velocities and a comparison group of participants with nonelevated transcranial Doppler velocities in northern Nigeria.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe tested the hypothesis that fixed oral moderate-dose hydroxyurea (20 mg/kg per day) for initial treatment of secondary stroke prevention results in an 80% relative risk reduction of stroke or death when compared with fixed oral low-dose hydroxyurea (10 mg/kg per day) in a phase 3 double-blind, parallel-group, randomized controlled trial in children with sickle cell anemia (SCA) living in Nigeria. A total of 101 participants were randomly allocated to low-dose (n = 49) and moderate-dose (n = 52) hydroxyurea treatment groups. The median participant follow-up was 1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this work, a polypyrrole-polyethyleneimine (PPy-PEI) nano-adsorbent was successfully synthesized for the removal of methylene blue (MB) from an aqueous solution. Synthetic dyes are among the most prevalent environmental contaminants. A new conducting polymer-based adsorbent called (PPy-PEI) was successfully produced using ammonium persulfate as an oxidant.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this study poly (4-nitrophenylazo-3-aminopyridine - formaldehyde) (PNAAP-F) and poly (4-nitroarylazo-3-chloro-6-hydroxypyridine - formaldehyde) (NAACHP-F) were synthesized via diazotization, coupling and polycondensation reactions. The structural properties of the as-synthesized dyes were acquired using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and UV-visible absorption maxima and their color, yield, melting point, solubility, and viscosity were determined via standard methods. UV-visible and FTIR results show successful formation of the polymeric dyes due to shift of wavelength of maximum absorption () (440-490 nm, 480-540 nm) and new absorption peak at around (2780-2995 cm) for methylene bridge respectively.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Myopathy is a disorder of skeletal muscles and has a rare occurrence in pregnancy. It may present with numbness/weakness. The occurrence of isolated weakness involving all the limbs is alarming to the patient and the diagnosis can be challenging to the Obstetrician.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: In high-income countries, standard care for primary stroke prevention in children with sickle cell anaemia and abnormal transcranial Doppler velocities results in a 92% relative risk reduction of strokes but mandates initial monthly blood transfusion. In Africa, where regular blood transfusion is not feasible for most children, we tested the hypothesis that initial moderate-dose compared with low-dose hydroxyurea decreases the incidence of strokes for children with abnormal transcranial Doppler velocities.
Methods: SPRING is a double-blind, parallel-group, randomised, controlled, phase 3 trial of children aged 5-12 years with sickle cell anaemia with abnormal transcranial Doppler velocities conducted at three teaching hospitals in Nigeria.
Background: Nigeria has the highest proportion of children with sickle cell anemia (SCA) globally; an estimated 150,000 infants with SCA are born annually. Primary stroke prevention in children with SCA must include Nigeria. We describe capacity-building strategies in conjunction with two National Institutes of Health-funded primary stroke prevention trials (a feasibility trial and phase III randomized controlled trial) with initial hydroxyurea treatment for children with SCA and abnormal transcranial Doppler (TCD) velocities in Nigeria.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe used the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework to evaluate a Stroke Prevention Team's readiness to prevent strokes in children with sickle cell anemia living in northern Nigeria. The NIH sponsored Stroke Prevention Trial in Nigeria included a goal of a sustainable stroke prevention program. The program's 1-year reach for transcranial Doppler screening was 14.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStrokes in children with sickle cell anemia (SCA) are associated with significant morbidity and premature death. Primary stroke prevention in children with SCA involves screening for abnormal transcranial Doppler (TCD) velocity coupled with regular blood transfusion therapy for children with abnormal velocities, for at least one year. However, in Africa, where the majority of children with SCA live, regular blood transfusions are not feasible due to inadequate supply of safe blood, cost, and the reluctance of caregivers to accept transfusion therapy for their children.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The travel distance from home to a treatment centre, which may impact the stage at diagnosis, has not been investigated for retinoblastoma, the most common childhood eye cancer. We aimed to investigate the travel burden and its impact on clinical presentation in a large sample of patients with retinoblastoma from Africa and Europe.
Methods: A cross-sectional analysis including 518 treatment-naïve patients with retinoblastoma residing in 40 European countries and 1024 treatment-naïve patients with retinoblastoma residing in 43 African countries.
Severe anaemia, defined as haemoglobin level < 6·0 g/dl, is an independent risk factor for death in individuals with sickle cell disease living in resource-limited settings. We conducted a cross-sectional study of 941 children with sickle cell anaemia, who had been defined as phenotype HbSS or HbSβ thalassaemia, aged five to 12 years, and were screened for enrollment into a large primary stroke prevention trial in Nigeria (SPRING; NCT02560935). The main aim of the study was to determine the prevalence and risk factors for severe anaemia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: Early diagnosis of retinoblastoma, the most common intraocular cancer, can save both a child's life and vision. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that many children across the world are diagnosed late. To our knowledge, the clinical presentation of retinoblastoma has never been assessed on a global scale.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnthropometric indices are widely used to assess the health and nutritional status of children. We tested the hypothesis that the 2007 World Health Organization (WHO) reference for assessment of malnutrition in children with sickle cell anemia (SCA) overestimates the prevalence of severe malnutrition when compared to a previously constructed SCA-specific reference. We applied the WHO and SCA-specific references to children with SCA aged 5-12 years living in northern Nigeria (Primary Prevention of Stroke in Children with SCA in sub-Saharan Africa (SPRING) trial) to determine the difference in prevalence of severe malnutrition defined as body mass index (BMI) -score <-3 and whether severe malnutrition was associated with lower mean hemoglobin levels or abnormal transcranial Doppler measurements (>200 cm/s).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA new steroidal ester bearing -nonadecanoyl moiety () and a mixture of isomeric cerebrosides () along with two known compounds were isolated from the methanol extract of the stem-bark of . The structure of the new steroidal ester was determined as 3--nonadecanoyl-β-sitosterol on the basis of modern spectroscopic techniques (IR, ESI-MS, HR-ESIMS, 1D and 2D NMR) and chemical degradation studies. The structures of the known compounds were identified as gallic acid and tanacetene by comparison of the spectroscopic data with those of reported data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Pulmonary hypertension (PH), a complication of sickle cell anaemia (SCA), results in considerable morbidity. This study aims to determine the prevalence and associations of echocardiography-suggested PH in children with SCA.
Methods: We performed a cross-sectional comparative study involving 100 systematically sampled SCA subjects 3-14 y of age in their steady state with matched haemoglobin AA phenotype controls.
Epilepsy is the most common serious childhood neurological disorder. In the low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) of Africa, children with epilepsy suffer increased morbidity and mortality compared to their counterparts in high-income countries, and the majority do not receive treatment - the childhood epilepsy treatment gap. Reports of the childhood epilepsy treatment gap in Africa are likely underestimates; most surveys do not include several common childhood seizure types, including most types of non-convulsive epilepsy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: To improve the quality of care for children with sickle cell anemia in Kano, Nigeria, we initiated a standard care protocol in 2014 to manage children with strokes at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital.
Methods: The standard care protocol requires that children with acute strokes be treated with hydroxyurea at a fixed dose of 20 mg/kg/day within two months of the stroke.
Results: Twenty-nine children with sickle cell anemia and initial stroke were identified based on clinical World Health Organization criteria from 2014 to 2017.