Role of operative airway evaluation in children with recurrent croup: a retrospective cohort study.

OBJECTIVE: Determine which risk factors in children with recurrent croup warrant bronchoscopic evaluation. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. SETTING: Tertiary paediatric hospital. PARTICIPANTS: Children with recurrent croup who underwent a rigid bronchoscopy between 2001 and 2013. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Bronchoscopy findings, classified as normal, mildly abnormal or significantly abnormal. RESULTS: Two hundred and thirty-five children underwent a rigid bronchoscopy and 110 underwent a flexible oesophagoscopy. One hundred and forty-five children (61.7%) had a mildly abnormal exam, and 27 children (11.5%) had significant findings that required a surgical intervention or grade 2 or greater subglottic stenosis. The significantly abnormal group included 4 children with laryngomalacia, 2 with a subglottic cyst, 8 with grade 2 or 3 subglottic stenosis and 13 children who underwent a surgical procedure for subglottic stenosis. Sixty-seven children had a preoperative diagnosis of asthma, 62 were atopic and 78 had symptoms of gastro-oesophageal reflux. Oesophagoscopy was diagnostic of gastro-oesophageal reflux in 19 of 110 cases, and 106 children (45.1%) had bronchoscopic findings suggestive of GERD. Eight children had eosinophilic oesophagitis. After multivariate analysis, significantly abnormal bronchoscopy was significantly associated with chronic cough (P = 0.02), have a previous intubation (P = 0.002) or be younger than 3 years old (P = 0.01). CONCLUSION: Significant findings on bronchoscopy that warranted further surgical intervention were uncommon in this cohort. Nearly half of the patients had evidence of gastro-oesophageal reflux. In patients without risk factors for significant abnormalities, empiric medical management may be beneficial prior to endoscopy.

Investigation of the proton induced reactions on tin at low energies.

Radioactive isotopes of antimony could be produced from proton induced reactions on tin isotopes. At low energy, (p,n) reactions are the only open channels. Measurements are performed for proton reactions with (124)Sn in the energy range between 9.0 and 18.0MeV. Evaluations of the remaining possible reactions are performed and compared with each other. The cross sections are calculated theoretically by the EMPIRE-II code for (124)Sn(p,n)(124)Sb reaction. However, the calculations failed to agree with the experimental results. A recommended evaluation is given and the thick target yields are calculated from the evaluated approximations.

Experimental investigation and nuclear model calculations on proton-induced reactions on highly enriched 114Cd at low energies.

The excitation functions of both Cd(p,n)(114m)In114 and Cd(p,2n)(113m)In114 reactions were evaluated experimentally by the stacked-foil technique on highly enriched (114)Cd isotope. Two stacks were irradiated by proton beam with energies 14.7 and 18MeV on the MGC-20 cyclotron at Nuclear Research Center, AEA, Egypt. The present results support the previous measurements. The theoretical interpretations of the measured excitation functions were done by EMPIRE-II (v2.18 Mondovi) code. Compatibility with predictions of hybrid Monte Carlo simulation (HMS) pre-equilibrium mechanism was obtained.