International Journal of Children and Adolescents
Volume:1 Issue: 2, Oct 2015

The present study investigated executive functions in students with high functioning autism (HFA) and students with educable Down syndrome (DS) with normal healthy students.
Fifteen boy students with HFA, 15 boy students with educable intellectual disability and 15 normal healthy boy students (aged between 7-15 years) were recruited from educational services. The study samples were controlled and matched based on their demographic criteria. The utilized research instruments were the 2nd version of Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (GARS2), Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) and its Digit Span subscale (direct and reverse) memory test, Color-Word Stroop test, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) and Continuous Performance Test (CPT). To analyze the data, one-way ANOVA, multivariate analysis of variances, univariate covariate, multivariate covariate and Bonferroni and Tukey post-hoc tests were used.
Analysis of covariance showed that there was significant difference only between students with HFA and control groups in the response inhibition, mental flexibility index and continuous attention. Moreover, there was significant difference between students with Down syndrome and control group in short- term memory, while comparisons between other variables revealed no significant difference between groups.
The results indicated that students with HFA considering their close IQ to normal students showed impairment in the executive functioning. This finding implicates the minor role of intelligence in the executive function level in these children.

Cystinosis is a rare inherited disease that leads to renal failure. Fanconi syndrome is the major renal involvement in cystinosis patients. Renal transplantation is the treatment of choice in cystinosis children with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). The study aimed to assess the outcome of renal transplantation in Iranian children with cystinosis.
This retrospective study is a follow up of 21 cystinosis children transplanted in Labafinejad Hospital, Tehran, Iran.
Three cystinosis patients involved by primary non-function because of graft vein thrombosis and/or severe acute tubular necrosis. The remaining cystinosis patients had excellent graft survival rate and only one patient lost the graft 3 years post-transplant due to noncompliance. The graft survival rate after excluding the patients with primary non-function was 100%, 94%, 94% and 94% at 1,3,5 and 10 years after transplant. The mean serum creatinine in patients with functioning graft 10 years after transplant was 1.6 mg/dl.
We showed that cystinosis patients had good graft function in long term after transplantation.

Vitamin D (Vit.D) has an important role as immunoregulator. Its deficiency is suggested as a risk factor for respiratory system infection. In this study the serum Vit.D level in pneumonia and healthy children will be compared.
This study is a prospective case control study and contains 31 children between 6 and 60 months old hospitalized because of pneumonia and 40 healthy children between 6 and 60 months old. Serum Vit.D level in these two groups were measured and compared with P value less than 0.05.
There was significant difference between “weight for age” but not in “height for age “Z-score. There was no significant difference between serum Vit.D level in the two groups. The mean serum Vit.D level in case group was 30.71 ng/ml and in control group was 31.89 ng/m.l (P=0.77)
We found no significant difference for frequency of Vit.D insufficiency between the two case and control groups. Maybe it is because of consuming supplemental Vit.D by most of infants and toddlers in Iran. More study with paying attention to this factor can be helpful.

Chronic renal failure (CRF) may have many effects on nervous system and manifest as headache, seizure, dialysis disequilibrium syndrome, cerebral hemorrhage, hypertensive encephalopathy, uremic neuropathy, and some neurologic complications of transplantation. In this present study we investigate neurologic disorders in children with CRF.
In this descriptive, cross sectional study, we evaluated 60 cases. Thirty normal cases compared with thirty patients with CRF admitted in nephrology ward in Aliasghar Children Hospital between April and December 2014.Two groups were matched for age and gender. Data were recorded on age, sex, causes of CRF, renal transplantation and neurologic manifestations.
Thirty patients had CRF and mean age was 10.86±5.25 years. Seventeen cases (56.7%) were male. Fourteen (46.7%) of cases had been transplanted. Twelve (40%) of patients had neurologic findings including seizures 7(23.4%), tension type headache 3 (10%), and developmental delay 2(6.6%). Causes of CRF were included congenital anomalies (46.6%), glomerulopathies (26.6%), tubulopathies (10%) and idiopathic cases (16.8%). Neurologic complications was significantly seen more in male patients (P=0.01).There was not significant relationship between age, causes of CRF, history of seizure in relatives, renal transplantation and neurologic findings. Two (7%) cases died of which both had seizures. In control group, neurologic findings was detected in two cases and there was significant differences between occurrence of seizure and neurologic findings in two groups (P=0.01, P=0.005).
Some neurologic manifestations such as seizure, headache and developmental delay in patients with CRF are seen especially in childhood period. It is recommended to evaluate neurologic disorders and treated properly in these cases.

Typhoid fever is still a major health problem for which there are limited options for the diagnosis. Current diagnostic methods are time consuming with undesirable sensitivity. Among newer diagnostic methods, PCR is attractive and could be potentially very helpful in developing countries where systemic salmonella infections are endemic among children but needs to be investigated.
We performed a cohort study in Aliasghar Children Hospital, a teaching hospital in Tehran, between May 2012 and July 2013 to include suspicious systemic salmonella infections. Clinical and laboratory findings as well as clinical courses were followed on daily basis. Overall, 45 patients assigned into 3 groups were included into the study. For each case all appropriate cultures as well as Widal agglutination test and a blood sample for PCR of salmonella were submitted after taking informed consent from parents.
Twenty one (46.7%) boys and 24 (53.3%) girls with ages ranging from 1 month of age to 17 years (mean 4.5 years) diagnosed for typhoid fever. About 88.9% of the patients had diarrhea, 84.4% had fever, 66.7% had vomiting, 28.9% had abdominal pain, 15.6% had nausea, 11.1% had rash and 2.2% had constipation. Eighteen (40%) patients have received antibiotic treatment before coming to the hospital. Group I consisted of 18(41%) patients, group II consisted of 27 patients with positive Widal test of these, one was blood and stool cultures positive however PCR in blood was negative in this group. Group III represented 2 patients with positive blood and stool cultures. In one case PCR in blood was positive. In another patient Widal test was negative despite positive blood culture and PCR in a leukemic kids who passed away.
In our setting the role of conventional PCR in blood samples of kids with suspicious systemic salmonella infections was not clearly determined. Larger sample size, preferably in a multicenter study, and using more sophisticated methods of blood cultures and novel techniques to increase the availability of organism for DNA detection is needed before determination of its role in both groups with no prior antibiotic therapy and cases with previous history of antibiotic administration.

Serum creatinine is the most used endogenous marker of glomerular filtration rate (GFR), but it also has multiple limitations. Therefore, some surrogate GFR markers, such as beta trace protein, have been introduced for GFR estimation. The aim of our study was to estimate GFR by serum beta trace protein using three available equations and compare them to DTPA GFR as the gold standard and Schwartz GFR.
The three beta trace protein (BTP)-related GFR formulas were the White formula (1): GFR=167.8×BTP-0.758×creatinine-0.204, Pöge formula (2): GFR=974.31×BTP-0.2594×creatinine-0.647, and Benlamri formula (3): GFR=10^ (1.902 (0.9515×LOG (1/BTP)). Twenty seven children were included in this study. All patients had a Schwartz and DTPA GFR more than 50 cc/min/1.73m2.
We showed that there was no significant correlation between DTPA GFR and Schwartz-estimated GFR (r= -0.1, Pv= 0.5). There also was not any association between GFR estimated by Pöge and Benlamri formulas and DTPA scans. In contrast, there was a significant association between DTPA GFR and White BTP formula-estimated GFR (r=0.77 r=0.00).
This study showed that GFR estimated by serum beta trace protein and White formula had accuracy over Schwartz formula in children with normal or mild reduced GFR however, this result needs to be confirmed by additional studies with more cases.

Tumor lysis syndrome (TLS) could occur before, during or after the initiation of chemotherapy in patients with cancers especially those with hematologic malignancies. This study was designed to determine the prevalence and predictors of TLS in children with Acute Lymphoblastic Lymphoma (ALL) and to develop a sensitive prediction rule to identify patients at low risk of TLS.
In this cross-sectional study 160 children diagnosed by ALL in Ali-Asghar Children Hospital, Tehran (1996-2010) were recruited. TLS was defined as having two or more of the certain criteria. Predictors of TLS were determined using univariate and multiple logistic regression analyses.
TLS was diagnosed in 41 cases (25.6%). The most common laboratory abnormality was hypocalcaemia (30%) in these patients. The results of univariate analysis showed that splenomegaly (OR, 2.38; p=0.005), mediastinal mass (OR, 4.45; p=0.003), T-cell phenotype (OR, 4.66; p=0.001), central nervous system involvement (OR, 10.93; p=0.001), lactate dehydrogenase ≥2000 U/L (OR, 3.88; p=0.003), and white blood count (WBC) ≥20×109/L (OR, 4.18; p It could be suggested to evaluate the risk of TLS in all patients with hematologic malignancies before starting chemotherapy. Finding a model of independent factors to define a group of ALL children at low risk of TLS could be used to prevent the monitoring and high cost prophylactic treatment modalities.