Long-term protective effect of post-exposure Havrix administration during viral hepatitis Type A outbreaks.

Administration of human normal immunoglobulin (HNIG) post-exposure has been routinely used in Slovakia for outbreak control of hepatitis A, but requires deep intramuscular injection, provides only short-lived protection and is a human blood product. The protective effect of post-exposure administration of an inactivated hepatitis A vaccine was evaluated during 10 outbreaks in Slovakia. Direct contacts of confirmed hepatitis A cases received either: a single dose of hepatitis A vaccine (n = 2171) or immunoglobulin (HNIG, n = 3837).

[Diagnosis of Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophy in Slovak patients using multiplex polymerase chain reaction].

The authors of the paper describe the diagnostic method of deletion in the dystrophin gene by means of an improved variant of the polymerase chain reaction--so called multiplex PCR. The authors analyzed a group of 66 patients with developed clinical symptoms of the disease. The deletion screening included 22 exones of the dystrophine gene and it was performed in 5 multiplex PCR reactions.

[Presence of Y-specific sequences in patients with Turner syndrome as a presymptomatic marker of increased risk of gonadoblastoma].

The risk of the origin of neoplasms in patients with gonadal dysgenesis and the presence of Y chromosome mosaicism has been known for a long period. The majority of hidden mosaicism is however not detectable by means of cytogenetic methods. The authors of this study deal with the detection of Y specific chromosomal sequences in 86 patients with Turner syndrome by means of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and compare the results of this method with cytogenetic findings.