Pediatric admissions to emergency departments of North-Western Italy during COVID-19 pandemic: A retrospective observational study.

Background: COVID-19 pandemic caused huge decrease of pediatric admissions to Emergency Department (ED), arising concerns about possible delays in diagnosis and treatment of severe disorders.

Methods: Impact of COVID-19 on Pediatric Emergency Room (ICOPER) was a retrospective multicentre observational study including 23 Italian EDs.All the children <18 years admitted, between March 9th and May 3rd 2020 stratified by age, priority code, cause of admission and outcome have been included and compared to those admitted in the same period of 2019.

Harlequin fetus: a case report.

The authors report a case of "harlequin fetus" which was brought to their attention. The report was justified not only by the rarity of the disease, but above all because, after having examined the literature on the topic, this appears to be the third case treated with etretinate. The case in question was a female affected by congenital ichthyosis in its total form and by initial necrosis of the extremities.

[The role of vitamin E in the therapy of thalassemia].

Serum vitamin E values are depressed in thalassaemia owing to increased consumption because of the oxidative stress imposed both to red cells and other tissues by haemochromatosis. A study of vitamin E deficiency was carried over a period of about 2 years in 161 transfusion dependent thalassaemic patients aged 4 months to 18 years (including 74 splenectomized subjects) all following the same transfusion and chelation protocol (pretransfusion Hb = 11 gr/dl and daily chelation with subcutaneous infusion of desferrioxamine 12 hr a day). Serum vitamin E levels were determined by Martinek's method.

External calcium inhibits the efflux of calcium from isolated retinal rod outer segment disks.

Increasing the concentration of calcium in the external buffer flowing past isolated, intact bovine retinal rod outer segment disks immobilized in a flow system reduced the rate of radioactive calcium efflux from within the disks in the dark. We interpret these results as extradiskal calcium acting at an inhibitory binding site to block the calcium efflux. A Scatchard analysis of the external calcium dependence of the efflux yields an apparent dissociation constant of 50 microM, which further suggests that the inhibition is mediated by a specific membrane binding site.