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A 15-year-old adolescent Caucasian male with no significant past medical history presented to the clinic with gradually worsening left ankle pain over the past 2 weeks, ever since he started his football practice. He complained of dull aching pain at the lower end of his left leg for the past 4 months, which was slightly relieved by over-the-counter nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). He twisted his left ankle and noticed further worsening pain, which prompted this doctor visit.

Jon Matthew Farber, MD, practices in Northern Virginia where he can refer patients to a large variety of pediatric specialists, but he often chooses not to do so. Here are some common conditions/findings that are often referred out that he believes are often unnecessary.

Febrile infants from disadvantaged neighborhoods with high rates of childhood poverty are much more likely than their peers from more affluent neighborhoods to have a bacterial source for their fever, according to a retrospective study of infants aged 90 days or younger with a temperature of 100°F or greater who visited an emergency department (ED) of an urban children’s hospital.

 Of 973 preschool-aged children with acute gastroenteritis who visited 1 of 10 geographically diverse pediatric emergency departments (EDs), those who received a 5-day course of Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, a commonly recommended and used probiotic, did not have better outcomes than those who received placebo, a prospective, randomized trial found.

For Contemporary Pediatrics, Dr Bobby Lazzara discusses the latest data on the effectiveness of CAR T-cell therapy from the ELIANA trial, which was presented at the 2018 American Society of Hematology annual meeting in San Diego, California.