News

A10-year-old boy was brought to a medical mission clinic in Roaring Creek, Belize, for evaluation of bald spots on his head. The mother reported that the bald areas seemed to be worsening because of the child's uncontrollable desire to pull out his hair.

One week earlier, a 14-month-old girl with a history of eczema was evaluated because of a diffuse rash of excoriated lesions, some of them purulent. She was afebrile. Worsening eczema with secondary infection was diagnosed. Treatment with oral clindamycin was prescribed. At follow-up, the lesions had worsened. The child had multiple excoriated papules, some of which had coalesced into plaques. She also had two 5-mm vesicles on her right shoulder. Eczema herpeticum was diagnosed clinically. Culture of the vesicles later grew herpes simplex virus (HSV).

Neuroblastoma

A 9-month-old girl was brought to the emergency department (ED) byher mother for abdominal distention, progressive failure to thrive, diarrhea,and occasional vomiting.

This thumb anomaly in a 16-month-old boy was noted within the first month of life. The mother heard an occasional popping sound when trying to straighten the thumb. The infant also had subcoronal hypospadias. He was otherwise healthy.

The world's best-known pediatrician, by a country mile, is still Benjamin Spock, MD, the author of The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has released new recommendations for school meal programs, setting maximum calorie levels for breakfast and lunch and recommending that the sodium content of meals should be gradually reduced over the next 10 years.

An article published in Contemporary Pediatrics 25 years ago instructed pediatricians on medications to treat attention deficit disorders (ADD). Their observations were so perceptive that, with a few tweaks, they could be republished as a 2009 update on attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).