Pediatric Noncerebral Thromboembolism: Etiological Assessment and Outcome.

Objective: To report clinical presentation and etiologic investigation findings during pediatric noncerebral thromboembolism.

Methods: Retrospective study of cases of vascular non cerebral thromboses admitted in Medicine infantile A Department of the Children's Hospital of Tunis over 08 years.

Results: We confirmed 14 cases of non cerebral vascular thromboses.

Molecular identification of Gd A- and Gd B- G6PD deficient variants by ARMS-PCR in a Tunisian population.

Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency is the most common enzymopathy. More than 200 mutations in the G6PD gene have been described. In Tunisia, the A-African and the B-Mediterranean mutations predominate the mutational spectrum.

[Acute respiratory distress syndrome in infants at term and near term about 23 cases].

Aim: to precise the incidence of acute respiratory distress syndrome in infants at term and near term and the clinical characteristics of this disease not yet well recognised.

Methods: Retrospective study of the medical records of infants admitted in the paediatric intensive care unit for ARDS along a period of 4 years. Diagnosis of ARDS was based on the following criterias: (1) Gestational age > or =35 weeks of gestation; (2) Severe and immediate respiratory distress requiring mechanical ventilation with PEEP > or =4 cmH2O and FiO2 > or = 0.

[Management of purpura fulminans apropos of 21 cases: diagnostic delay and therapeutic problems].

Aim: To evaluate the diagnostic delay and therapeutic insufficiencies delay before the transfer in ICU of the children admitted in the ICU of the children's hospital of Tunis with a purpura fulminans (PF).

Methods: A retrospective, descriptive study, of children with PF referred between January 2000 and January 2006 to a the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) of the children's hospital of Tunis. The PF diagnosis was retained in any child presenting a feverish purpura and circulatory insufficiency signs.

High-frequency oscillatory ventilation in paediatric patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome--early rescue use.

Unlabelled: In order to determine the response to high-frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV), used as an "early rescue" therapy, in a cohort of paediatric patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a prospective clinical study was performed in a tertiary care paediatric intensive care unit. Ten consecutive patients, aged 12 days to 5 years with ARDS and hypoxaemic respiratory failure on conventional ventilation (CV), using a lung protective strategy, were managed with HFOV early in the course of the disease process (median length of CV 4 h). Arterial blood gases, oxygenation index (OI), alveolar-arterial oxygen difference (P(A-a)O2) and PaO2/FIO2 ratio were prospectively recorded prior to HFOV (0 h) and at predetermined intervals throughout the course of the HFOV protocol.