Pituitary stalk interruption syndrome: diagnostic delay and sensitivity of the auxological criteria of the growth hormone research society.

Objectives: To study the diagnostic delay for pituitary stalk interruption syndrome (PSIS) with growth hormone deficiency (GHD) and the sensitivity of the auxological criteria of the Growth Hormone Research Society (GHRS) consensus guidelines.

Methods: A single-center retrospective case-cohort study covering records from January 2000 through December 2007 evaluated the performance of each GHRS auxological criterion for patients with GHD and PSIS. Diagnostic delay was calculated as the difference between the age at which the earliest GHRS criterion could have been observed and the age at diagnosis of PSIS with GHD.

Selecting short-statured children needing growth hormone testing: derivation and validation of a clinical decision rule.

Background: Numerous short-statured children are evaluated for growth hormone (GH) deficiency (GHD). In most patients, GH provocative tests are normal and are thus in retrospect unnecessary.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted to identify predictors of growth hormone (GH) deficiency (GHD) in children seen for short stature, and to construct a very sensitive and fairly specific predictive tool to avoid unnecessary GH provocative tests.

Hot flushes, common symptoms, and social relations among middle-aged nonmenopausal French women in the GAZEL cohort.

Objective: Many symptoms, including hot flushes (HFs) may appear during the years preceding menopause. Hypotheses to explain these symptoms include biomedical, demographic, and cultural risk factors. Social relations are also associated with various aspects of health.

ICPCview: visualizing the International Classification of Primary Care.

This paper proposes a method to visualize the semantic content of data bases where the medical information is coded with the International Classification of Primary Care. The main idea is the identification of a pixel with a code and the conversion of all the data associated with these into an image the ICPCview. The method proceeds in two step, defining the reference frame and using this reference frame to visualize data.