Pediatric acute flaccid myelitis: Evaluation of diagnostic criteria and differentiation from other causes of acute flaccid paralysis.

Background: Acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) is characterized by rapidly progressive limb weakness with low muscle tone. It has a broad differential diagnosis, which includes acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), a rare polio-like condition that mainly affects young children. Differentiation between AFM and other causes of AFP may be difficult, particularly at onset of disease.

[Ventriculoperitoneal shunt dysfunction in children: various clinical presentations].

The clinical presentation of a ventriculoperitoneal shunt (VP-shunt) dysfunction depends on whether the cranial sutures are still unfused, and on the cause and severity of the VP-shunt obstruction. A suspicion of a VP-shunt dysfunction is always reason to consult with a neurosurgeon. A patient with a suspected VP-shunt dysfunction that presents with elevated intracranial pressure should be urgently assessed at the emergency department of a neurosurgical center.

A phase I/II study of bevacizumab, irinotecan and erlotinib in children with progressive diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma.

Introduction: This study investigates the safety, tolerability, and preliminary efficacy of combined treatment with VEGF inhibitor bevacizumab, topoisomerase I inhibitor irinotecan, and EGFR inhibitor erlotinib in children with progressive diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG).

Methods: Biweekly bevacizumab (10 mg/kg) and irinotecan (125 mg/m) were combined with daily erlotinib. Two cohorts received increasing doses of erlotinib (65 and 85 mg/m) following a 3 + 3 dose-escalation schedule, until disease progression with a maximum of one year.

De novo variants in SNAP25 cause an early-onset developmental and epileptic encephalopathy.

Purpose: This study aims to provide a comprehensive description of the phenotypic and genotypic spectrum of SNAP25 developmental and epileptic encephalopathy (SNAP25-DEE) by reviewing newly identified and previously reported individuals.

Methods: Individuals harboring heterozygous missense or loss-of-function variants in SNAP25 were assembled through collaboration with international colleagues, matchmaking platforms, and literature review. For each individual, detailed phenotyping, classification, and structural modeling of the identified variant were performed.

Correction to: A phase I/II study of gemcitabine during radiotherapy in children with newly diagnosed diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma.

In Table 2 of the original publication, there were errors in the baseline scores for the PedsQL TM 3.0 Cancer Module questionnaire, so a corrected version of Table 2 is shown in this erratum. In the subcategories of the PedsQL TM 3.

A phase I/II study of gemcitabine during radiotherapy in children with newly diagnosed diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma.

The purpose of this phase I/II, open-label, single-arm trial is to investigate the safety, tolerability, maximum tolerated dose and preliminary efficacy of the potential radiosensitizer gemcitabine, administered concomitantly to radiotherapy, in children with newly diagnosed diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG). Six doses of weekly gemcitabine were administered intravenously, concomitantly to 6 weeks of hyperfractionated radiotherapy. Successive cohorts received increasing doses of 140, 175 and 200 mg/m gemcitabine, respectively, following a 3 + 3 dose-escalation schedule without expansion cohort.

Effectiveness of a hybrid corticosteroid treatment regimen on refractory childhood seizures and a review of other corticosteroid treatments.

Background: Many different corticosteroid treatment schedules have been used in order to treat refractory epileptic seizures with encouraging effects on seizure reduction in many epileptic syndromes.

Objective: The objective is to report our experience with a hybrid treatment regimen for refractory seizures in children with epilepsies other than West and Landau-Kleffner syndrome. We hypothesized that a pulse of corticosteroids effectively reduces seizures while low-dosage maintenance treatment reduces side effects.

Multiple linear regression analysis of bacterial deposition to polyurethane coatings after conditioning film formation in the marine environment.

Many studies have shown relationships of substratum hydrophobicity, charge or roughness with bacterial adhesion, although bacterial adhesion is governed by interplay of different physico-chemical properties and multiple regression analysis would be more suitable to reveal mechanisms of bacterial adhesion. The formation of a conditioning film of organic compounds adsorbed from seawater affects the properties of substratum surfaces prior to bacterial adhesion, which is a complicating factor in studying the mechanism of bacterial adhesion. In this paper, the impact of conditioning films adsorbed from natural seawater to four polyurethane coatings with different hydrophobicity, elasticity and roughness was studied for three different marine bacterial strains in a multiple linear regression analysis.

Bacterial strains isolated from different niches can exhibit different patterns of adhesion to substrata.

Various mechanisms have been demonstrated to be operative in bacterial adhesion to surfaces, but whether bacterial adhesion to surfaces can ever be captured in one generally valid mechanism is open to question. Although many papers in the literature make an attempt to generalize their conclusions, the majority of studies of bacterial adhesion comprise only two or fewer strains. Here we demonstrate that three strains isolated from a medical environment have a decreasing affinity for substrata with increasing surface free energy, whereas three strains from a marine environment have an increasing affinity for substrata with increasing surface free energy.

The effect of dissolved organic carbon on bacterial adhesion to conditioning films adsorbed on glass from natural seawater collected during different seasons.

Adhesion of three marine bacterial strains, i.e. Marinobacter hydrocarbonoclasticus, Psychrobacter sp.

Bacterial deposition in a parallel plate and a stagnation point flow chamber: microbial adhesion mechanisms depend on the mass transport conditions.

Deposition onto glass in a parallel plate (PP) and in a stagnation point (SP) flow chamber of Marinobacter hydrocarbonoclasticus, Psychrobacter sp. and Halomonas pacifica, suspended in artificial seawater, was compared in order to determine the influence of methodology on bacterial adhesion mechanisms. The three strains had different cell surface hydrophobicities, with water contact angles on bacterial lawns ranging from 18 to 85 degrees.