Pediatric convulsive status epilepticus in Honduras, Central America.

Convulsive status epilepticus (SE) in children is an important public health problem, particularly in low-resource countries. A surveillance study was performed with consecutive enrollment of all children presenting with convulsive SE to Hospital Escuela Materno-Infantil Emergency Department in Tegucigalpa, Honduras over a 13-week period in 2003. In the 47 children with SE, the mean age was 4.

Measurement of health-related quality of life in survivors of cancer in childhood in Central America: feasibility, reliability, and validity.

Cancer is the commonest cause of disease-related death in children over 5 years of age in various parts of Latin America, but the survival rates are improving. This study assessed the health status and health-related quality of life (HRQL) of more than 200 survivors of cancer in childhood in the countries of a Central American consortium devoted to pediatric hematology-oncology. Patients' self-reports and parental proxy assessments were collected using interviewer-administered Spanish-language questionnaires, and physicians provided assessments using self-complete questionnaires, based on the complementary Health Utilities Index (HUI) Mark 2 (HUI2) and Mark 3 (HUI3) health status classification systems.

Epidemiology of childhood Guillain-Barré syndrome as a cause of acute flaccid paralysis in Honduras: 1989-1999.

The objective of this study was to investigate the incidence of acute flaccid paralysis in the pediatric population of Honduras over an 11-year period, determine what percentage of acute flaccid paralysis was Guillain-Barré syndrome, and identify the epidemiologic features of Guillain-Barré syndrome. There were 546 childhood cases of acute flaccid paralysis seen between January 1989 and December 1999 at the Hospital Escuela Materno-Infantil in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Of these cases with acute flaccid paralysis, 394 (72.