Anales españoles de pediatría
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Review
[Instruments for measuring health-related quality of life in children and adolescents with asthma].
Measures of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) are proving to be useful in providing a comprehensive evaluation of illness and its effects on patients' daily lives. The aim of this review is to describe HRQOL instruments that are currently available to measure the HRQOL in children and adolescents with asthma. ⋯ The availability of instruments to measure the HRQOL of children with asthma in Spain is currently limited. Validated versions of the PedsQL (generic) and PAQLQ (specific) instruments, both of which have been demonstrated to be useful in other countries, should shortly be available to measure the HRQOL of children with asthma in Spain.
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Review Comparative Study
[Procalcitonin. A new marker for bacterial infection].
Procalcitonin is a polypeptide present in the plasma of healthy subjects in minimal levels (< 0.5 ng/ml). Serum procalcitonin is markedly increased a few hours after the administration of endotoxin to human volunteers and in invasive bacterial infection (sepsis, septic shock, meningitis). Procalcitonin is moderately increased in local bacterial infection (pneumonia pyelonephritis) and is unchanged in viral infections or bacterial colonization. ⋯ We studied 54 children with sepsis in whom plasma procalcitonin levels showed a positive correlation with the vasoactive drugs necessary to maintain cardiovascular activity. The semiquantitative procalcitonin test is simple and easy to use at the bedside at any time and in any hospital as no instruments are required. Within 30 minutes, the test identifies the type of infection and whether antibiotics are indicated.
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Child maltreatment, in it's different forms (physical, negligence, Münchausen syndrome by proxy, sexual abuses.), represents an important morbidity cause, especially in the first years of the life. Nowadays, the battered child syndrome includes forms of abuse and different degrees of negligence (moderate, serious and light) in which the physical abuse could be absent. Determination of the forms of abuse, their diagnosis, intervention and prevention, corresponds to multidisciplinary teams, in which the pediatrician has a crucial role.
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Review Comparative Study
[Meningococcal sepsis and septic shock: efficient measures and controversial treatments].