The gut microbiota can influence several diseases through immune modulation; however, the exact role of microbes such as Clostridium difficileand the relationship between microbiota colonization and allergic diseases are not well known. This study aimed to determine the relationship between C. difficilecolonization and/or infection (CDCI) during infancy and allergic diseases during early childhood.

Infants 1–12 months of age presenting changes in...

Following legal reform in 2013, the annual number of asylum seekers entering South Korea has increased from 1,143 in 2012 to 5,711 in 2015. We interviewed six African refugee mothers of young children regarding their health needs and barriers to access maternal child health services.

We recruited mothers who had visited a clinic for immigrants between July 2013 and August 2015....

Chloramphenicol and tetracycline are not recommended for treating scrub typhus in pediatric patients because of potential side effects, such as aplastic anemia or tooth discoloration. While clarithromycin has recently been used in adults, few reports have been published on its effects in pediatric patients. We report the clinical profiles of pediatric scrub typhus and the effects of clarithromycin on scrub...

Tuberculosis (TB) remains a problem in the community. TB patients usually experience malnutrition, which is characterized by both decreased body weight (BW) and body fat percentage (BFP). Leptin, an important regulator of BW, also plays an important role in cellular immunity, which is integral to defense against Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. We analyzed the effect of an anti-TB treatment regimen on...

The aims of this study were to compare serum procalcitonin (PCT) levels between febrile children with Kawasaki disease (KD) and those with bacterial or viral infections, and assess the clinical usefulness of PCT level in predicting KD.

Serum PCT levels were examined in febrile pediatric patients admitted between August 2013 and August 2014. The patients were divided into 3 groups as...

This study aimed to determine the prevalence of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency among infants with neonatal indirect hyperbilirubinemia (NIH); compare G6PD-deficient and G6PD-normal patients regarding hyperbilirubinemia and need for exchange transfusions (ET); and assess risk factors for ET and kernicterus.

This is a case-control retrospective study. Medical records of NIH patients admitted to the Pediatric Department, Salmaniya Medical Complex, Bahrain, between...

To evaluate the clinical spectrum of posttransplantation lymphoproliferative disorder (PTLD) after solid organ transplantation (SOT) in children.

We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 18 patients with PTLD who underwent liver (LT) or kidney transplantation (KT) between January 1995 and December 2014 in Seoul National University Children's Hospital.

Eighteen patients (3.9% of pediatric SOTs; LT:KT, 11:7; male to female, 9:9) were diagnosed...

Fever is one of the most common symptoms in children. In previous studies, infectious disease was the most common cause of pediatric fever of unknown origin (FUO). The aim of this study is to investigate the etiology, clinical characteristics and prognosis of pediatric FUO in 21 century with more diagnostics available and to analyze the factors for certain disease categories.

Among...

This study investigated self-food restriction during breastfeeding, reviewed the literature showing the effect of maternal diet on the health of breast-fed infants, and explored the validity of dietary restrictions.

Questionnaire data were collected from breastfeeding Korean mothers who visited the pediatric clinic of Cheil General Hospital & Women's Healthcare Center from July 2015 through August 2015. The survey included items assessing...

The goal of nutritional support for very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) infants from birth to term is to match the in utero growth rates; however, this is rarely achieved.

We evaluated postdischarge growth patterns and growth failure in 81 Korean VLBW infants through a retrospective study. Weight and height were measured and calculated based on age percentile distribution every 3 months until age 24...

The aims of this study were to evaluate the safety and pharmacokinetics of levetiracetam (LEV) in neonates with seizures and to establish a population pharmacokinetics (PPK) model by using the software NONMEM.

A retrospective analysis of 18 neonatal patients with seizures, who were treated with LEV, including 151 serum samples, was performed. The mean loading dose was 20 mg/kg, followed by...

Serum level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OHD) is considered as the most appropriate marker of vitamin D status. However, only a few studies have investigated the relationship between 25-OHD and parathyroid hormone (PTH) in children. To this end, this study was aimed at evaluating the lowest 25-OHD level that suppresses the production of parathyroid hormone in children.

A retrospective record review was...

Kawasaki disease (KD) is an immune-related multisystemic vasculitis that occurs in children, especially ensuing from a coronary artery abnormality. Sodium level is known to be related to vascular injury, which could affect the progress of KD. The purpose of this study was to determine the serum sodium levels that could predict the occurrence of cardiac and coronary artery events in...

Previously, Kawasaki disease (KD) treatment with low-dose aspirin was administered for 6–8 weeks after the acute phase. However, inflammatory marker levels normalize before 6–8 weeks. In this study, we aimed to investigate the clinical outcome of short-term low-dose aspirin treatment based on inflammatory and thrombotic marker levels.

We performed a retrospective review of the medical records of patients with KD who...

To examine the correlation of depression with Internet use and body image perception, and to analyze the risk factors of depression in a total of 920 students in Seoul, Korea.

Students were recruited by contacting school principals and teachers and were encouraged to fill out a self-report questionnaire designed specifically for this study in July of 2008.

Female participants had an increased...

Although procalcitonin (PCT) level is useful for the diagnosis of neonatal sepsis, PCT reliability is inconsistent because of the varied conditions encountered in neonatal intensive care units. This study aimed to investigate PCT levels and factors influencing increased PCT levelin newborns without bacterial infection during the first week of life.

In newborns hospitalized between March 2013 and October 2015, PCT levels...

We investigated the number of test takers of the Korean-Developmental Screening Test (K-DST) in a single children's hospital within a year, according to age, referral rate, and follow-up percentage.

For this study, 4,062 children who visited and received K-DST at Woorisoa Children's Hospital between January and December 2015 were enrolled. Seven test sets were used according to the Korean National Health...

We conducted a study to determine which factors may be useful as predictive markers in identifying Kawasaki disease (KD) patients with a high risk of resistance to intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) and developing coronary artery lesions (CAL).

We enrolled 287 patients in acute phase of KD at a single center. The demographic, clinical and laboratory data were collected retrospectively.

There were 34 patients...

Chest radiography is often performed on patients hospitalized with typical clinical manifestations of bronchiolitis. We aimed to determine the proportion of subjects with pathologic chest radiographic findings and the clinical predictors associated with pathologic chest radiographic findings in young children admitted with the typical presentation of bronchiolitis.

We obtained the following data at admission: sex, age, neonatal history, past history of...

Neurocardiogenic syncope (NCS) is the most frequent cause of fainting during adolescence. Inappropriate cardiovascular autonomic control may be responsible for this clinical event. The head-up tilt test has been considered a diagnostic standard, but it is cumbersome and has a high false-positive rate. We performed a study to evaluate whether P-wave dispersion (PWD) could be a useful electrocardiographic parameter of...

Generally, aspirin is used as a protective agent against thrombogenic phenomenon after pulmonary valve replacement (PVR) using a bioprosthetic valve. However, the appropriate duration of aspirin use is unclear. We analyzed the impact of postoperative duration of aspirin use on the longevity of bioprosthetic pulmonary valves in patients who underwent repair for congenital heart diseases.

We retrospectively reviewed the clinical data...

This study aimed to identify prognostic factors of neurological outcomes, including developmental delay, cerebral palsy and epilepsy in late-preterm and term infants with perinatal asphyxia.

All late-preterm and term infants with perinatal asphyxia or hypoxic-ischemic insults who admitted the neonatal intensive care unit of Inje University Sanggye Paik Hospital between 2006 and 2014 and were followed up for at least 2...

We investigated behavioral problems, attention problems, and cognitive function in children and adolescents born small for gestational age (SGA).

Forty-six SGA children born at term and 46 appropriate for gestational age (AGA) children born at term were compared. Psychiatric symptoms were examined with reference to the Korean-Child Behavior Checklist, Korean-Youth Self Report, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Rating Scale (ADHD-RS). Cognitive...

This study investigated predictors of unresponsiveness to second-line intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) treatment for Kawasaki disease (KD).

This was a single-center analysis of the medical records of 588 patients with KD who had been admitted to Asan Medical Center between 2006 and 2014. Related clinical and laboratory data were analyzed by univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses.

Eighty (13.6%) of the 588 patients...

Buckwheat allergy is one of the most severe types of food allergy in some countries, especially among children. However, few studies have investigated this condition. The aim of this study was to report the clinical and laboratory findings in Korean children with buckwheat allergy.

Thirty-seven subjects, aged 1 to 14 years, were enrolled by retrospective medical record review from January 2000...

Patients with unresectable, relapsed, or refractory osteosarcoma need a novel therapeutic agent. Metformin is a biguanide derivative used in the treatment of type II diabetes, and is recently gaining attention in cancer research.

We evaluated the effect of metformin against human osteosarcoma. Four osteosarcoma cell lines (KHOS/NP, HOS, MG-63, U-2 OS) were treated with metformin and cell proliferation was evaluated using...

This study examined the risk factors of a delayed diagnosis of acute appendicitis in children undergoing an appendectomy.

This retrospective study involved children aged below 18 years, who underwent an appendectomy. After dividing them into a delayed diagnosis group and nondelayed diagnosis group according to the time interval between the initial hospital visit and final diagnosis, the risk factors of delayed...

This study aimed to investigate the clinical significance of serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels in children with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and the effect of lifestyle intervention on NAFLD.

The clinical data of 86 children diagnosed with NAFLD were reviewed retrospectively. Forty-six patients belonged to the elevated ALT group and 40 to the normal ALT group. The clinical parameters of...

Venous angioma (VA) is the most common congenital abnormality of the intracranial vasculature. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between VA and epilepsy and to identify the characteristics of children with VA and epilepsy.

The records of all patients aged less than 18 years who underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at Pusan National University Hospital were retrospectively reviewed. Patients...

This study aimed to evaluate the clinical course of childhood immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) and to assess the risk factors for developing chronic ITP.

The records of 64 children diagnosed with ITP from November 2005 and December 2014 at single center were retrospectively analyzed.

The median age at diagnosis and the median platelet count were 1 year (range, 1 month to 15 years)...