Psychometric properties of the portuguese version of the chronic urticaria quality of life questionnaire (CU-QoL).

Background: Chronic urticaria is defined as the appearance of urticarial lesions and/or angioedema during a period of more than six weeks. We aimed at developing the Portuguese version of the Chronic Urticaria Quality of Life Questionnaire (CU-QoL) and at testing its reliability and the content, construct and criterion validity.

Methods: The forward-backward approach to a linguistic equivalence was followed, after which a clinical review and a cognitive debriefing with patients were performed.

"Minor" hemoglobinopathies: a risk factor for asthma.

Background: Thalassemia, sickle cell disease and other hemoglobinopathies are not rare in Portugal and European Mediterranean area. Homozygotic patients present major hematological disease but heterozygotic minor assymptomatic forms are frequent, mainly thalassemia minor and sickle cell trait. In these cases mycrocytosis with decrease or red cell volume and mean corpuscular volume or abnormal rigid erythrocytes are found and can lead to hemorheologic disturbances.