Identification of a panel of cytokines in neonates with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy treated with hypothermia.

Purpose: Inflammation is a crucial but understudied mechanism of neuronal injury after hypoxia-ischemia. The aim was to identify a panel of cytokines involved in brain injury in neonates with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE).

Methods: Ten newborns with HIE undergoing to therapeutic hypothermia (TH, HIE Group) and 8 healthy newborns (CTRL Group) were enrolled.

Optic perineuritis: a further cause of visual loss and disc edema in children.

Background: Optic perineuritis is a rare form of orbital inflammatory pseudotumor in which the specific target tissue is the optic nerve sheath. Patients are mainly represented by adult women. Differential diagnosis with demyelinating optic neuritis is essential in terms of prognosis and treatment.

Recurrent Miller Fisher syndrome in children.

Background: Miller Fisher syndrome is usually a monophasic disorder. Recurrent Miller Fisher syndrome is extremely rare, and all patients with recurrences have been adults. Although the optimal treatment for Miller Fisher syndrome has yet to be established, the typical therapy includes intravenous immunoglobulin or plasma exchange.

May oxidative stress biomarkers in cord blood predict the occurrence of necrotizing enterocolitis in preterm infants?

Introduction: Oxidative stress (OS) is strongly involved in the pathogenesis of many preterm newborn diseases; this is due to the low efficiency of neonatal antioxidant systems unable to counteract the harmful effects of free radicals (FRs). Hypoxic-ischemic events and inflammation, involved in necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) pathogenesis, are responsible of the overproduction of FRs, generating OS.

Aim: To test the hypotesis that OS markers levels in cord blood may early identify the newborns at high risk to develop NEC.