News

Although motivating a family to lead a healthful lifestyle is difficult, with the right approach you can often make a difference. Failing to recognize or address overweight in children is no longer acceptable. Includes two Guides for Parents.

What goes wrong with blood cells and genes of children who suffer this grim disease? And how has a high cure rate revealed late effects of treatment? Answers to these (and more) questions shape your ongoing basic care of patients at the onset of, during, and after their illness.

How do you choose an antimicrobial agent wisely when the clinical situation necessitates it yet neither the pathogen nor its susceptibility is apparent? The authors organize the principles, and pitfalls, of empiric prescribing into a practical outpatient and inpatient guide.

What caused a tonic-clonic seizure?

What's causing the "doughnut-shaped bumps" on a boy's legs?

The measures of quality in medical care of children differ from that of adult medicine.

Guide for Parents: Preparing for your travel clinic appointment

Guide for Parents: How to help your overweight child

Guide for Parents: Strategies for your family to eat right and move more

A 2-year-old African American boy was brought for evaluation of symptoms of an upper respiratory tract infection and intermittent abdominal pain.

A 9-year-old Hispanic boy presented with submental swelling and dysphagia. The swelling had progressed over 5 days. He had no history of fever, difficulty in breathing, or voice change.

A 30-hour-old boy--born to a 36-year-old gravida 3, para 3, at full term via a spontaneous vaginal delivery--was noted to a have a mildly distended abdomen while in the newborn nursery. He had been breast-feeding every 2 to 3 hours and initially was spitting up about a quarter of the volume he had consumed. During the last 3 or 4 feedings, he had been spitting up most of the milk. There was no bilious emesis. He had not passed meconium.

Millions enjoy skiing, snowboarding, and sledding. These cold weather activities--while exhilarating--also cause many injuries, each with distinct clinical characteristics.

A 12-year-old boy is assessed on the same day that he passed red-colored urine. The boy had been vigorously wrestling with his older brother in the morning; he passed the abnormal-colored urine after lunch. His mother was worried that his kidneys might have been injured during the wrestling.

Parents often place extra blankets or clothes on infants to keep them warm during colder months of winter, according to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), one of the National Institutes of Health; however, this additional bedding material may increase an infant's risk of SIDS.

Parents often place extra blankets or clothes on infants to keep them warm during colder months of winter, according to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), one of the National Institutes of Health; however, this additional bedding material may increase an infant's risk of SIDS.

The FDA reported recently that Zostavax, Merck's experimental vaccine to prevent shingles, helps curb zoster-related pain but does not significantly affect the rate of death or hospitalization, according to regulatory staff in documents released recently. The finding was based on Merck data.

Nine percent of adolescents between 12 and 17 years old (a total of 2.2 million teenagers) in the US experienced at least one major depressive episode in the past year, according to an analysis by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's (SAMHSA) 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health Report.

The American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) and the National Jewish Medical and Research Center (NJMRC) have issued statements protesting new black box cancer warnings that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has ordered on Elidel Cream (pimecrolimus; Novartis) and Protopic ointment (tacrolimus; Astellas Pharma US, Inc.), both use to treat atopic dermatitis (eczema).

A major component of soy that is found in, among other foods, soy-based infant formula disrupts the development of the ovaries in newborn female mice, according to the findings of a study conducted by researchers at the National Institute of Health of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), an arm of the National Institutes of Health, in collaboration with an investigator at Syracuse University. Results of the early study were published in the January issue of Biology of Reproduction.

The US Food and Drug Administration earlier this month approved Merck's vaccine to prevent rotavirus gastroenteritis, a leading cause of severe diarrhea in infants and young children. RotaTeq, an oral, three-dose vaccine, is given to infants 6 to 32 weeks old.