Adolescent Medicine

Long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) is the best choice for preventing unintended pregnancies, rapid repeat pregnancies, and abortions among sexually active adolescents and should be the first-line recommendation by health care providers, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Tobacco use by middle school students decreased by nearly half between 2000 and 2001—from 14.9% to 7.1%—and fell from 34.4% to 23.2% among high school students, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). How do you help to continue the downward trend? More >>

Have efforts to reduce HIV-related risk behaviors among high school students been successful? The latest data from the Centers from Disease Control and Prevention show that teens are practicing safer sex, but progress has stalled over the past decade.

Adolescent migraine sufferers soon may be able to get the same relief as adults. Does the combination of sumatriptan and naproxen sodium stack up against teenage migraine pain and its associated symptoms?

Evidence from a pilot study suggests that blood biomarkers obtained from teenagers may identify those at risk for early onset major depressive disorder.

Although emergency contraception (EC) is safe, effective, and widely available, misinformation communicated by pharmacies to adolescents and their physicians can make it difficult for teens to obtain EC in a timely manner. Do you know how to counter the misinformation and help your patients access EC?

A frustrated teenage girl comes to your office complaining of an itchy, red rash on her right calf that she's had for 3 months.

Pediatricians are in an ideal position to turn around the low rate of vaccination against human papillomavirus in teenaged girls, according to a new government study. Nearly two-thirds of American teenaged girls have yet to receive the recommended 3-dose vaccination. Here are some proven methods for getting them the protection they need.

Medical advances have increased the number of chronically ill children who are surviving into adolescence and adulthood, and their interest in sex and sexual behavior mirrors that of healthy teen counterparts.

A teenager arrives in ED with fatigue and headaches. He is diagnosed with primary CNS vasculitis.

A comatose teenager and a differential diagnosis of hyperammonemia eventually points to a genetic origin for the condition.

Q and A with Alain Joffe, MD about current recommendations for adolescent vaccinations.

Counseling teenage patients on contraceptive options can and should be part of a day's work. Here's what you need to know.

This rash on a teenage boy's palms began on his hands and spread to his torso and upper and lower extremities over several days. He had no pain or pruritus. Two weeks before the lesions appeared, he had experienced fatigue, fever, and myalgia of 1 week's duration.

What's the cause of a hyperpigmented patch on an adolescent boy's back?

An adolescent girl complains of headaches and presents with lateral-gaze paralysis of the right eye. Can you solve this mystery?

Pediatricians are incredibly important to adolescents-they are the only professionals who see teenagers repeatedly, and in confidence, through the adolescent years.

The July 2006 issue, which featured an update on STDs, included a case on primary syphilis in a teenager (page 427). Therapy with intramuscular penicillin G (weekly for 3 weeks) or ceftriaxone (daily for 2 weeks) was recommended. However, the CDC's newly published guidelines on STD treatment recommend therapy with a single intramuscular dose of 2.4 million units of penicillin G.1 If the patient is allergic to penicillin, the alternative is therapy with doxycycline (100 mg orally bid for 14 days) or tetracycline (500 mg qid for 14 days). Ceftriaxone is not a recommended treatment for syphilis.

Fourteen-year-old JT is worried. During health class last week, he learned about the different sexually transmitted infections as well as about testicular self-examination. While practicing his monthly testicular examination in the shower, he noticed that he had a number of small growths on his penis. On further questioning, JT insists that he has never been sexually active with another person.

Adolescents are at high risk for HPV infection because they tend to become involved with multiple simultaneous sexual partners rather than forming monogamous relationships.

How did I get herpes? Is there a cure? What causes an outbreak-- and what can I do to prevent another one? My friend got herpes and had to stay in the hospital; will that happen to me? Can I still have children?

Your doctor has just told you that you have a herpes simplex virus infection (herpes). Most teens have a lot of questions about herpes. This guide will help answer some of them for you.

Your patient, Keith, is a 19-year-old college freshman who is currently on spring break following the successful completion of his midterm exams. You have known him since he was 9 years old and you are looking forward to hearing about his first few months away at school.

This update answers key questions about emergency contraception and will help increase your patients' access to this form of pregnancy prevention. Includes a Guide for Patients.

Parents' complaints about sudden mood swings of teenagers are common, but new research shows that children who experience early-life stresses such as abuse, neglect, or loss of a parent have an increased risk in adolescence of behavioral and emotional disorders. The research, conducted on rhesus macaque monkeys at the Oregon National Primate Research Center at Oregon Health & Science University and at the University of Pittsburgh, suggests that adolescents who have been exposed to early-life stress have a greater incidence of developing an attachment disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, anxiety, depression, suicide, drug abuse, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

A study of adolescents who lack part of chromosome 22 could lead to identification of a gene suspected of a role in schizophrenia. Findings of that study appear in the November 2005 issue of Nature Neuroscience.Although youths with the 22q11.2 chromosomal deletion syndrome already have a nearly 30-fold higher-than-normal risk of schizophrenia, those who have one of two common sequence versions of the suspect gene are more prone to cognitive decline, psychosis, and frontal-lobe tissue loss by late adolescence. The genetic variant appears to make symptoms of the deletion syndrome worse by chronically boosting the chemical messenger dopamine to an excessive level in the prefrontal cortex during development.