Evaluation of clinical and demographic features of childhood food allergy: A single-center experience.

OBJECTIVE: Current evaluations of pediatric food allergies are very important, many studies have shown that the frequency of food allergies is increasing in the pediatric age group. In this study, we retrospectively investigated the epidemiology and clinical features to better understand the clinical effects of food allergy, to contribute to the literature on this subject, and to evaluate the data of our country. METHODS: The epidemiological and clinical data of patients with food allergies diagnosed at the Erciyes University Pediatric Allergy Outpatient Clinic between 2014 and 2019 were analyzed. The outcomes were analyzed by a statistical analyzing program and compared with the literature. RESULTS: As a result of our retrospective evaluation, we found that the mean age of 854 patients who were diagnosed with food allergy was 21.2±30.7 months (min 0 months, max 16.5 years). 512 (60%) of our patients were female, and 342 (40%) were male. The most common complaint was rash at the rate of 75.2% and followed by itching 27.6%, angioedema 10.5%, bloody defecation 10.5%, wheezing 8.4%, vomiting 8.3%, diarrhea 6.7%, frequent bronchiolitis 6.6%, cough 6.2%, and shortness of breath 4.4%. It was shown that 32.2% of the patient had multiple food allergies and the highest sensitivity rates were 65.9% with egg allergies and 39.2% with milk. In the classification, it was found that 75.1% of the patients who were followed up with food allergy had IgE-mediated food allergy, and 24.9% had a non-IgE-mediated food allergy. CONCLUSION: The results of this study of a 5-year cross-sectional evaluation of the patients diagnosed with food allergy and followed up in our clinic may contribute to the growing body of literature on pediatric-age food allergy.

Attitudes among medical and nonmedical university students toward the survivors of childhood abuse.

OBJECTIVE: Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is increasing, and current studies should address issues such as stigmas and casual attitudes that may be amenable to intervention. Thus, we aimed to investigate the effects of education on the attitudes of medical students toward CSA survivors. METHOD: We divided medical students into 2 groups: preclinical and clinical medical students. We compare the attitudes of nonmedical students with the attitudes of medical students with respect to survivors of CSA. All participants were asked to complete a questionnaire about stigmatization. RESULTS: There were 572 students in our study, 347 of whom were enrolled in medical school. Of the 347 medical students, 151 were from the preclinical group, and 196 were from the clinical practice group. The remainder of the participants (n = 225) were in other fields of university. Of the medical students, 68.3% responded negatively about "asking a survivor of abuse to supervise their child for a few hours," whereas 62.7% of the nonmedical students responded negatively. When asked, "What would you think if your child wanted to marry a survivor of sexual abuse?", 72.9% of the medical students and 59.1% of the nonmedical students displayed negative attitudes toward that idea. Our research also found that significantly more preclinical students than clinical students would not want to be in a companionship/friendship with a CSA survivor at work (P = .015) or in their neighborhoods (P = .034). CONCLUSION: Both medical and nonmedical students seem to have negative thoughts about sexual abuse survivors, particularly when the issue involves their own children and/or social situations. Thus, the medical professionals must be careful and should avoid over interpretations of findings on childhood abuse studies that may lead to stigmatization.

The Spectrum of Underlying Diseases in Children with Torticollis.

AIM: To investigate the underlying conditions in children with torticollis. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Between May 2016 and December 2019, 24 patients (10 girls and 14 boys; mean age, 8 years) presenting with twisted neck, neck pain, weakness of extremities, imbalance, and gait disorder were evaluated retrospectively. RESULTS: Five of the patients had cranial pathologies (cerebellar anaplastic ependymoma and medulloblastoma, brain stem glioma, atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor, and acute disseminated encephalomyelitis), and five of the patients had spinal pathologies (idiopathic intervertebral disc calcification, vertebral hemangiomatosis, compression fracture, multiple hereditary exostoses, and Langerhans cell histiocytosis at C4). Six of the patients had ocular pathologies (strabismus, Duane syndrome, and Brown syndrome each in two patients). Four patients had otorhinolaryngological infections (Sandifer syndrome, esophageal atresia, reflux, and spasmus nutans, with one patient each). Detailed clinical physical examination and necessary laboratory investigation were performed for all patients. CONCLUSION: Torticollis is a sign that is not always innocent and may herald an underlying severe disease. Misdiagnosis can lead to wrong and unnecessary surgical procedures and treatments, and sometimes, the results can be damaging due to underlying severe conditions if diagnosed late. In addition, we first report a case of vertebral hemangiomatosis and temporomandibular joint ankylosis that presented with torticollis in the English medical literature.

Accelerated long-term forgetting after amygdalohippocampectomy in temporal lobe epilepsy.

AIM OF THE STUDY: Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) has been associated with the phenomenon of accelerated long-term forgetting (ALF). In this study, we aimed to demonstrate the effect of surgery on the ALF phenomena thus contributing to potential explanation of the causal mechanism. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We evaluated 51 patients with TLE related to hippocampal sclerosis who had amygdalohippocampectomy and had remained seizure-free after surgery. A control group consisted of 24 healthy individuals. All were given a verbal learning test assessing recall after 30 min, 1 week and 6 weeks. RESULTS: In our study, the Left-TLE (L-TLE) group showed a statistically significant reduction in the performance at all assessment intervals from 30 min to 1 week compared to the Right-TLE and control groups regarding verbal learning memory test (VLMT) as well as for logical memory. The forgetting rates in the VLMT from 30 min to 1 week were not statistically significantly different between all 3 groups. The logical memory test results equally showed no statistically significant difference in the forgetting rates for the 3 groups between 30 min and 1 week. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: These results may support ongoing debates assuming the initial low performance in the memory of L-TLE patients to be directly related with left hippocampal-temporal tissue loss irrespective of epileptic activity. The discovery of the ALF phenomenon explains that standard memory tests are unable to detect memory loss in some patients who are experiencing a significant level of problems with forgetfulness in their daily lives.

Intracranial abscess developed after ganciclovir treatment: A case report.

In this report, we examine severe neutropenia secondary to ganciclovir treatment and associated intracranial abscess in a patient with respiratory insufficiency who required intubation due to cytomegalovirus (CMV) pneumonitis. Secondary neutropenia is a condition encountered more frequently than primary neutropenia, and additional risk factors may lead to vital complications, independent of the presence of additional risk factors.