Pediatric Extramedullary Epidural Spinal Teratomas: A Case Report and Review of the Literature.

Background: Teratomas in the pediatric population are most commonly found in the sacrococcygeal region. Pediatric intraspinal teratomas, however, are an exceedingly rare central nervous system (CNS) neoplasm. The clinical presentation of these intraspinal neoplasms can vary significantly and thus can be difficult to identify in infants less than one year of age where verbal expression and motor development are still lacking.

The internet as a source of information for De Quervain's tendinitis.

Background: Many individuals are turning to the Internet for information about various health conditions, and in our study we evaluated the quality and readability of information on the internet about De Quervain's tendinitis.

Methods: We chose the search terms "De Quervain's Tendinitis," "De Quervain's Tenosynovitis," and "De Quervain's Syndrome," and entered them into the search engines "Google," "Bing," and "Yahoo" and compiled the search results. The websites were then evaluated and assigned a quality score, a Flesch-Kincaid (FK) reading level, and a subjective quality score.

Isolated Lactobacillus chronic prosthetic knee infection.

Lactobacillus is a gram-positive rod bacteria found primarily in the gastrointestinal and female genital tracts. Prosthetic infections in implants are being increasingly reported. The authors present a case of a 58-year-old patient with Lactobacillus septic prosthetic knee joint infection.

Detecting shapes in noise: tuning characteristics of global shape mechanisms.

The proportion of signal elements embedded in noise needed to detect a signal is a standard tool for investigating motion perception. This paradigm was applied to the shape domain to determine how local information is pooled into a global percept. Stimulus arrays consisted of oriented Gabor elements that sampled the circumference of concentric radial frequency (RF) patterns.

The useful field of view test, normative data in children of school age.

Purpose: The incidence of early brain injury in children is rising, mainly because of changing reproductive demographics and better perinatal care. Early brain injury may be associated with altered visual perception and visuospatial attention. The useful field of view test (UFOV) has been developed to assess visual attention and processing speed in the elderly.

Cognitive visual impairment with good visual acuity in children with posterior periventricular white matter injury: a series of 7 cases.

Background: We describe a series of term and preterm children with occipito-parietal periventricular white matter abnormalities on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) who manifest common clinical features of cognitive visual dysfunction. We also describe a strategy for taking clinical history that highlights the symptom complex and assists with management.

Patients And Methods: A retrospective observational case series study of seven children with cognitive visual difficulties despite good (20/32 or better) visual acuities and MRI findings of periventricular white matter pathology in the territory subserving visual function.

Global emergence of trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole resistance in Stenotrophomonas maltophilia mediated by acquisition of sul genes.

Trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (TMP/SMX) resistance remains a serious threat in the treatment of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia infections. We analyzed an international collection of 55 S. maltophilia TMP/SMX-sensitive (S) (n=30) and -resistant (R) (n=25) strains for integrons; sul1, sul2 and dhfr genes; and insertion element common region (ISCR) elements.

Visual attention as an important visual function: an outline of manifestations, diagnosis and management of impaired visual attention.

Impaired visual attention is a common manifestation of cerebral dysfunction. In adults, closed head trauma, cerebral microvascular ischaemia and dementia are common causes. In children, aetiologies include periventricular leukomalacia, hydrocephalus, hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy and brain damage caused by hypoglycaemia.

Italian metallo-beta-lactamases: a national problem? Report from the SENTRY Antimicrobial Surveillance Programme.

Objectives: As part of the SENTRY Antimicrobial Surveillance Programme, 383 non-replicative randomly collected Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates were collected during 1999-2002. These strains originated from three geographically distinct hospitals within Italy: Genoa (Northern Italy); Rome and Catania (Sicily), and were further studied to identify the prevalence of metallo-beta-lactamase (MbetaL) alleles across Italy and to determine their genetic details.

Methods: Multidrug-resistant (MDR) strains were identified by MIC analysis followed by genotyping and PCR-based strategies.