Neonatal asymmetric crying facies: a new look at an old problem.

Neonatal asymmetric crying facies, described 75 years ago, is a clinical phenotype resembling unilateral partial peripheral facial nerve paralysis, with an incidence of approximately 1 per 160 live births. The cause is either facial nerve compression or faulty facial muscle and/or nerve development. Spontaneous resolution is expected with the former, but not necessarily with the latter etiology.

Initial Kaiser Permanente Southern California Experience Embracing the New Technology of Transcatheter Closure of Atrial Septal Defects.

As a result of individual physicians' initiative, transcatheter closure of secundum atrial septal defects-a new procedure-was made available to patients in the Kaiser Permanente (KP) Southern California Region soon after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved use of the AMPLATZER Septal Occluder. This ingenious device and the procedure for its implantation are described along with results of implantation in our initial 51 pediatric and adult patients. These results are compared with other published results.

Autonomic syncope in pediatrics: a practice-oriented approach to classification, pathophysiology, diagnosis, and management.

This paper presents a practice-oriented approach to the problem of syncope in pediatrics. Autonomic syncope is the major etiologic category in pediatrics and consists of 2 types: reflex and dysautonomic. The latter type is rare in pediatrics.

Chest pain during stenting of a native aortic coarctation: a case for acute intercostal muscle ischemia and rhabdomyolysis.

An adult male experienced severe chest pain during stenting of a native aortic coarctation. He also developed the postcoarctectomy syndrome with paradoxical hypertension and abdominal pain. Our hypothesis suggests that sudden interruption of large collateral blood flow caused acute chest wall muscle ischemia, rhabdomyolysis, and severe chest pain.

An uncommon echocardiographic marker for anomalous origin of the left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery: visualization of intercoronary collaterals within the ventricular septum.

A rare and striking echocardiographic finding with color-flow Doppler--visualization of intercoronary collaterals within the ventricular septum--in an asymptomatic 5-year-old girl is reported. It strongly suggests anomalous origin of the left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery. Several additional echocardiographic features can secure the diagnosis and allow one to proceed with surgical correction without confirmatory cardiac catheterization and angiocardiography.

[Thrombocytic diseases in generalized myasthenia gravis and their correction by using plasmapheresis and administration of anti- immunoglobulin antisera].

Platelet adhesion and aggregation studies were performed in different test systems in 25 patients with plasmapheresis-treated myasthenia patients. In vivo studies with plasmapheresis and in vitro investigation with anti-immunoglobulin antisera revealed the normalization of the impaired platelet functions.

[Use of therapeutic plasmapheresis in patients with generalized myasthenia during exacerbations in the late period following thymectomy].

In ten patients with generalized myasthenia in whom disease exacerbation was noted long after thymectomy the authors employed a multiple modality treatment including therapeutic plasmapheresis (TP). The treatment was monitored by examining the status of neuromuscular transmission and parameters of external respiration, as well as the levels of immunoglobulins. It has been shown that the inclusion of TP into the complex of therapeutic measures in the given category of patients makes it possible to arrest quickly and to a considerable degree the clinical manifestations of an exacerbation, to increase the reliability of neuromuscular transmission and decrease doses of anticholinesterase drugs.