Safe sex progress stalls in teenagers
August 1st 2012Have 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.
Misinformation limits teens' access to emergency contraception
March 29th 2012Although 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?
Low HPV vaccination rate could mean danger later for teenagers
September 1st 2011Pediatricians 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.
Secondary Syphilis in a Teenage Boy
August 1st 2007This 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.
Erratum: Update on treatment of primary syphilis
September 1st 2006The 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.
Sexually Transmitted Diseases:A Photo Quiz
July 1st 2006Fourteen-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.
Guest Commentary: Actually, Doctor, There's This One Thing . . .
March 1st 2006Your 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.
New evidence: Mental health problems in teenagers may be traceable to early-life stress
January 13th 2006Parents' 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.
Gene variant boosts schizophrenia risk in already highly vulnerable teenagers
November 4th 2005A 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.
Vaccinate teenagers against pertussis?
June 20th 2005Adolescents can be immunized against pertussis; just last month, the Food and Drug Administration put its seal of approval on not one but two such vaccines-Adacel (Sanofi Pasteur) and Booxtrix (GlaxoSmithKline). Whether all teenagers should be vaccinated is another question, however, and one of supreme interest to pediatricians.