Diencephalic Syndrome: Misleading Clinical Onset of Low-Grade Glioma.

Background: Diencephalic Syndrome is an atypical early manifestation of low-grade gliomas; so, it is important to detect it in patients that experience a failure to thrive despite adequate length growth and food intake. The purpose of this article is to focus attention on this rare but potentially dangerous cause of poor weight gain or stunting in childhood.

Materials And Methods: We describe four patients with Diencephalic Syndrome and low-grade gliomas who were evaluated in our institution from January 2017 to December 2021.

General anesthesia, conscious sedation, or nothing: Decision-making by children during painful procedures.

Background: Following diagnosis, children with cancer suddenly find themselves in an unknown world where unfamiliar adults make all the important decisions. Children typically experience increasing levels of anxiety with repeated invasive procedures and do not adapt to the discomfort. The aim of the present study is to explore the possibility of asking children directly about their medical support preferences during invasive procedures.

Diagnostic and prognostic markers in infants with disseminated neuroblastoma: a retrospective analysis from the Italian Cooperative Group for Neuroblastoma.

Background: One fourth of infants with disseminated neuroblastoma experience unfavorable outcome. Treatment strategies vary and are based on clinical characteristics at diagnosis which lead to the definition of stage 4 or 4s. To identify the distribution and effect of different prognostic factors, a series of such infants diagnosed in Italy between 1991-1999 was reviewed.

Neurotoxicity during ifosfamide treatment in children.

Background: Neurotoxicity has been reported in about 5% of children treated with ifosfamide for tumors not involving the central nervous system. The entity of ifosfamide neurotoxicity can be of different degree, from very light and transient to fatal.

Case Reports: All cases of ifosfamide neurotoxicity recorded at the Pediatric Hematology and Oncology Unit in the 15-year period between 1989 and 2003 are reported.

Craniofacial morphology in patients with sickle cell disease: a cephalometric analysis.

The aim of the study was to evaluate the craniofacial morphology in Caucasian patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) by comparing them with a healthy group paired for gender and age, by means of lateral cephalometric radiographs. Thirty-six Sicilian patients with SCD (17 females and 19 males), including 14 beta(s)beta(s) (mean age 28 +/- 5.9 years), 13 beta(s)beta(0 th) (mean age 27.

Natural killer lymphoma/leukemia: an uncommon pediatric case with indolent course.

Natural killer (NK) cell lymphomas are rare in the USA and Europe but more common in Asia and Central America although very rare among children. We report a case of Epstein-Barr virus-positive NK lymphoma/leukemia, that showed peculiar features represented by a very long clinical course with a significant interval between the first clinical signs and the diagnosis, detection of neoplastic cells in the peripheral blood but not in the bone marrow, and good response to treatment and clinical outcome.