[Alport syndrome. Report of two cases].

Alport syndrome is an inherited progressive form of glomerular disease that is often associated with sensorineural hearing loss and ocular abnormalities. We report two men with Alport syndrome. Both had chronic kidney disease and consulted for long-term loss of visual acuity.

Latin American and Caribbean consensus on noninvasive central nervous system neuromodulation for chronic pain management (LAC-NIN-CP).

Introduction: Chronic pain (CP) is highly prevalent and generally undertreated health condition. Noninvasive brain stimulation may contribute to decrease pain intensity and influence other aspects related to CP.

Objective: To provide consensus-based recommendations for the use of noninvasive brain stimulation in clinical practice.

[A model of ophthalmological network care including primary care centers and a tertiary care hospital].

Background: Primary care units of ophtalmology (UAPO) were incorporated in 2003 into the healthcare system of the Ministry of Health, in response to the high demand for hospital care. Three of these primary care units were incorporated to provide a network care with the ophthalmology service of a tertiary care hospital.

Aim: To report the public health impact of networking.

Undertreatment of pain and low use of opioids in Latin America.

Pain is highly prevalent among the adult Latin American population. However, many patients with moderate to severe pain do not have access to effective pain management with opioids due to limited access to healthcare, overuse of nonopioid analgesics, regulatory barriers and lack of appropriate information about opioids. There is scarce training on use of opioids among physicians and other healthcare providers, which leads to misconceptions, mainly related to a fear of prescribing opioids.

Use of Opioids in Latin America: The Need of an Evidence-Based Change.

Objective: The subject of this publication has been focused on local considerations for facilitating regional best practice, including identifying and uniformly adopting the most relevant international guidelines on opioid use (OU) in chronic pain management.

Design And Setting: The Change Pain Latin America (CPLA) Advisory Panel conducted a comprehensive, robust, and critical analysis of published national and international reviews and guidelines of OU, considering those most appropriate for Latin America.

Methods: A PubMed search was conducted using the terms "opioid," "chronic," and "pain" and then refined using the filters "practice guidelines" and "within the last 5 years" (2007-2012).