[Recent advances in the use of essential fatty acids in pediatrics within the limits of diet, prevention and therapy].

The authors review the origins and the metabolism of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids and particularly consider the implications of desaturase's deficiency and of the usual imbalanced supply of fatty acids in the diet of children. The peculiarity of the fatty acids is to be, while proteins express the genome, the expression of the diet on the cell's membranes, with a subtle influence of an enzyme's equipment varying during the life. All that gains an extraordinary relief, because the omega-6 and omega-3, and constituents of the membranes, are precursors of different series of prostaglandins, which are wholebody mediators of multiple phenomenons like inflammation, immunity, allergy, platelet aggregation, ecc.

[Urinary tract infections in childhood: importance of immediate urine culture. Personal experience with 4176 tests].

Since infections of the urinary tract in children often present diagnostic difficulties, it is essential to be able to identify these patients with simple, reliable methods. After a clinical-laboratory study on 4176 urine cultures, the Authors affirm that the reliability of this test is much greater when the parents have been instructed in the correct way of collection the urine specimen, and when in the laboratory the "slide" is carried out within three hours of taking the sample.