Rehospitalization in the first 2 years of life in children born preterm.

Aim: Aim of the study is to investigate the frequency of and predictors for rehospitalization within the first 2 years of life among preterm infants.

Methods: All children born before 32 weeks of gestation in Northern Tyrol between January 2003 and July 2008 were prospectively enrolled. Data on rehospitalizations were obtained from hospital admission records.

Neonatal characteristics and risk of atopic asthma in schoolchildren: results from a large prospective birth-cohort study.

Aim: Asthma is among the most common chronic diseases in childhood and steadily increasing in prevalence. Identification of risk predictors for a hospitalization for atopic asthma in childhood may help design prevention programmes and improve our understanding of disease pathobiology.

Methods: An ongoing birth-cohort study prospectively enrolled all liveborn infants in Tyrol.

Living at high altitude and risk of hospitalisation for atopic asthma in children: results from a large prospective birth-cohort study.

Background: Asthma is among the most common chronic diseases in childhood and is steadily increasing in prevalence. Better characterisation of factors that determine the risk of hospitalisation for atopic asthma in childhood may help design prevention programmes and improve our understanding of disease pathobiology. This study will focus on the altitude of residence.

Comparative genomic hybridization reveals a partial de novo trisomy 6q23-qter in an infant with congenital malformations: delineation of the phenotype.

We report the use of comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) to define the origin of a small extra segment (unidentifiable by classical cytogenetics) present in a de novo add(13)q34 chromosome that we found in the karyotype of a newly born boy with congenital heart defects, brain anomalies and dysmorphic signs. Initial investigation with fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and a chromosome-13-specific library revealed that the excess material was not derived from chromosome 13. To uncover the origin of the unknown chromosome material, CGH was carried out on DNA isolated from blood lymphocytes of the patient.

[Exogenous allergic alveolitis (bird fancier's lung)].

A 13 year old boy was admitted to our clinic because of caugh, dyspnoe, tachypnoe and bilateral fine moist rales since more than 6 months. Pulmonary function studies showed a restrictive lung disease. Lung biopsy revealed an interstitial pneumonitis.