[What is the dentist's role in the recognition of child abuse?]. / Welke rol speelt de tandarts bij het ontdekken van kindermishandeling?

For a Dutch dentist, the chance to recognise a physical abused child with injuries in the head-neck region, is less than once every 18 months. But child abuse is difficult to recognize. In spite of all this, it's still important for dentists to know how to recognise child abuse, since the effects on a child can be harmful. Child abuse finds its expression in, for example bruises, burns, laceration of the labial frenulum or avulsed teeth. There are also often behavioural problems. Clothes can mask lesions. The fact that child abuse can't be reported anonymously is a misconception. Professionals can report a case of child abuse anonymously to the "Advies en Meldpunten Kindermishandeling", although a not anonymous report is favoured.

Bioactivity of luteinizing hormone during normal puberty in girls and boys.

In order to evaluate the in vitro bioactivity of LH during normal puberty compared to LH immunoactivity measured in a highly sensitive immunoassay, blood plasma samples from healthy children were analyzed in a mouse Leydig cell assay (MLCA). Blood samples were obtained from 60 healthy girls and boys during normal pubertal development. Samples were taken on two occasions with a 1-year interval. Three daytime samples and three nighttime samples were analyzed. The correlation of the LH immunoradiometric assay (IRMA) activity with the LH activity in the MLCA varied from 0.60 to 0.96 in the different pubertal stages. During pubertal development, a gradually increase in the activity of LH in both the IRMA and MLCA was found. The ratio of the in vitro bioactivity compared to the immunoreactivity (B/I ratio) did not change significantly during puberty: it was 0.84 (SD 0.58) and 0.66 (SD 0.40) during the first and second sampling period in girls and 0.88 (SD 0.38) and 0.91 (SD 0.46, NS) in the boys. The B/I ratio of LH does not change during puberty. With a high sensitivity and specificity, measurement of LH by IRMA gives representative measurements of the LH in vitro bioactivity in children during pubertal development. Copyrightz1999S. KargerAG,Basel