Among the many factors associated with acute intestinal mucosal infection, numerous studies have proposed the usefulness of fecal calprotectin. The aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of fecal calprotectin in the diagnosis of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC).

We collected 154 stool samples from 16 very low birth weight and premature newborns at the Konyang University Hospital neonatal intensive care...

Adenoid hypertrophy is a physical alteration that may affect speech, and a speech disorder can have other negative effects on a child's life. Airway obstruction leads to constricted oral breathing and causes postural alterations of several oro-facial structures, including the mouth, tongue, and hyoid bone. The postural modifications may affect several aspects of speech production.

In this study, we compared articulation...

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common disorder in school-aged children. Patients with restless legs syndrome (RLS) often present with ADHD symptoms and vice versa. This study was the first to attempt to identify the prevalence of RLS and sleep problems in children with ADHD in Korea.

Patients diagnosed with ADHD were asked to complete a sleep questionnaire. The sleep...

Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a complex genetic disorder that results from the lack of paternally expressed genes in the chromosome 15q11-q13 region. This study was performed to delineate the clinical features of PWS infants and toddlers and the effects of two-year growth hormone (GH) treatment according to gender and age at the start of treatment.

The clinical characteristics and the results...

To evaluate the potential utility of ¹²³I-metaiodobenzylguanine (¹²³I-MIBG) scintigraphy and ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose (¹⁸F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) for the detection of primary and metastatic lesions in pediatric neuroblastoma (NBL) patients, and to determine whether ¹⁸F-FDG PET is as beneficial as ¹²³I-MIBG imaging.

We selected 8 NBL patients with significant residual mass after operation and who had paired ¹²³I-MIBG and ¹⁸F-FDG PET images...

A nationwide outbreak of Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia (MP) refractory to macrolide antibiotics occurred in Korea during 2011. Steroid therapy has been reported to be both efficacious and well tolerated in pediatric patients with refractory MP. We compared clinical features and laboratory characteristics between children with refractory MP requiring steroid treatment and those with macrolide-responsive MP and evaluated the risk factors...

Acute necrotizing encephalopathy (ANE) is a fulminant disease of the brain characterized by bilateral thalamic lesions, and is prevalent among children in East Asia. The prognosis of ANE is usually poor with a high mortality rate and neurological sequelae. This study aimed to delineate the clinical characteristics and prognostic factors of ANE.

We retrospectively analyzed clinical data of 399 pediatric patients...

Mitochondrial disease (MD) and Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) are often associated with cardiomyopathy, but the myocardial variability has not been isolated to a specific characteristic. We evaluated the left ventricular (LV) mass by echocardiography to identify the general distribution and functional changes of the myocardium in patients with MD or DMD.

We retrospectively evaluated the echocardiographic data of 90 children with...

Kikuchi-Fujimoto disease (KFD) is a benign disease, which is characterized by a cervical lymphadenopathy with fever, and it often mimics malignant lymphoma (ML). 2-[¹⁸F]fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT) is a powerful imaging modality for the diagnosis, staging and monitoring of ML, with the limitations including the nonspecific FDG uptake in infectious or inflammatory processes. This study compared clinical...

A recent study analyzing several cytokines reported that long cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) time and long aortic cross clamp (ACC) time were accompanied by enhanced postoperative inflammation, which contrasted with the modest influence of the degree of hypothermia. In this present study, we aimed to examine the effect of CPB temperature on the clinical outcome in infants undergoing repair of isolated...

The aim of this study was to determine whether school-aged children with Kawasaki disease (KD) have an increased risk for early atherosclerosis.

The study included 98 children. The children were divided into the following groups: group A (n=19), KD with coronary arterial lesions that persisted or regressed; group B (n=49), KD without coronary arterial lesions; and group C (n=30), healthy children....

This study aimed to evaluate the autonomic imbalance in syncope by comparing the baseline heart rate variability (HRV) between healthy children and those with vasovagal syncope.

To characterize the autonomic profile in children experiencing vasovagal syncope, we evaluated the HRV of 23 patients aged 7-18 years and 20 healthy children. These children were divided into preadolescent (<12 years) and adolescent groups....

The prevalence of macrolide-resistant Mycoplasma pneumoniae (MRMP) has increased worldwide. The aim of this study was to estimate the proportion of MRMP in a tertiary hospital in Korea, and to find potential laboratory markers that could be used to predict the efficacy of macrolides in children with MRMP pneumonia.

A total of 95 patients with M. pneumoniae pneumonia were enrolled in...

Blood culture is the most important tool for detecting bacteremia in children with fever. However, blood culture contamination rates range from 0.6% to 6.0% in adults; rates for young children have been considered higher than these, although data are limited, especially in Korea. This study determined the contamination rate and risk factors in pediatric patients visiting the emergency room (ER)...

Eosinophilia is common in premature infants, and its incidence increases with a shorter gestation period. We investigated the clinical significance of eosinophilia in premature infants born at <34 weeks gestation.

We analyzed the medical records of premature infants born at <34 weeks gestation who were admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit at Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital between January 2003...

Lowe syndrome is a rare, X-linked recessive disorder caused by mutations in the OCRL gene. It involves multiple anatomic systems, particularly the eyes, central nervous system, and kidneys, and leads to profound growth failure and global developmental delay. This study evaluated the clinical and genetic characteristics of Korean patients with Lowe syndrome.

The clinical findings and results of genetic studies were...

Adult Korean patients on chronic dialysis have a 9-year survival rate of 50%, with cardiovascular problems being the most significant cause of death. The 2011 annual report of the North American Pediatric Renal Trials and Collaborative Studies group reported 3-year survival rates of 93.4% and relatively poorer survival in younger patients.

In this study, we have reviewed data from Korean Pediatric...

The aim of this study was to characterize Korean patients with Fanconi anemia (FA), which is a rare but very challenging genetic disease.

The medical records of 12 FA patients diagnosed at Chonnam National University Hospital from 1991 to 2012 were retrospectively reviewed.

The median age at diagnosis was 6.2 years. All patients showed evidence of marrow failure and one or more...

Administration of antiretroviral drugs to mothers and infants significantly decreases mother-to-child human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission; cesarean sections and discouraging breastfeeding further decreases this risk. The present study confirmed the HIV status of babies born to mothers infected with HIV and describes the characteristics of babies and mothers who received preventive treatment.

This study retrospectively analyzed medical records of nine infants...

This study aimed to assess the characteristics of thyroid nodules among infants diagnosed with congenital hypothyroidism.

A retrospective study of 660 infants (374 males, 286 females) diagnosed with congenital hypothyroidism was carried out at the Pediatric Endocrine Clinic in Soonchunhyang University Hospital, Korea, between May 2003 and February 2013. The average age at diagnosis was 1.16±1.68 months.

Of the 28 patients (4.2%)...

Overweight can be defined by the body mass index (BMI) and is likely associated with an increased cardiovascular disease risk. However, waist circumference (WC), a central adiposity index, may be a better indicator of cardiovascular disease risk. Studies comparing the effects of BMI and WC on cardiovascular risk factors, such as high blood pressure (BP), are rare in adolescents.

We analyzed...

This study aimed to investigate the clinical features of macrocephaly at birth in Korea using ultrasonography.

We retrospectively investigated the medical records of full-term birth neonates in Cheil General Hospital & Women's Healthcare Center from January 2000 to June 2012. The following parameters were recorded and analyzed: gestational age, sex, birth weight, height, occipitofrontal circumference (OFC), physical examination, perinatal problems, and...

Renal size is an important indicator to determine adequate organ growth in children. The aim of this study was to estimate renal size with Technesium-99m dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA) scan and propose a simple formula for predicting renal length in normal Korean children.

This study included 346 children (148 boys and 198 girls; age range, 1 month to 17 years) in whom...

Height-specific blood pressure (BP) is the standard parameter used to diagnose childhood hypertension. However, there has been some argument that weight may be a better variable than height in the reference BP standards. Therefore, before assessing the BP status using the reference BP standards, a basic understanding of the fundamental association of weight and height with BP is required.

In the...

In this study, we aimed to investigate the prevalence of year-round respiratory viral infection in children with lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) and the relationship between respiratory viral infection and allergen sensitization in exacerbating asthma.

We investigated the sources for acute LRTIs in children admitted to our hospital from May 2010 to April 2011. The 6 most common respiratory viruses were...

Electroencephalography (EEG) is frequently ordered for patients with febrile seizures despite its unclear diagnostic value. We evaluated the prevalence of abnormal EEGs, the association between clinical findings and abnormal EEGs, and the predictive value of EEG for the recurrence of febrile seizures.

Data were collected on 230 children who were treated for febrile seizures at Kyung Hee University Medical Center from...

Obesity is an important risk factor for hypertension in adolescents. We investigated the relationship of obesity-related indices (body mass index [BMI], waist-to-height ratio [WHR], and body fat percentage [%BF]) with blood pressure and the hemodynamic determinants of blood pressure in Korean adolescents.

In 2008, 565 adolescents, aged 12-16 years, were examined. The %BF of the participants was measured by bioelectrical impedance...

The use of cyclosporine and mini-dose methotrexate (MTX) is a common strategy for graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) prophylaxis in allogeneic transplants. We investigated whether patients who receive fewer than the planned MTX doses are at increased risk for GVHD.

The study cohort included 103 patients who received allogeneic transplants at the Department of Pediatrics of The Catholic University of Korea College of...

The aim of the present study was to investigate the differences in lower airway inflammatory immune responses, including cellular responses and responses in terms of inflammatory mediators in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and the airway, to rhinovirus (RV) infection on asthma exacerbation by comparing a control and a murine asthma model, with or without RV infection.

BALB/c mice were intraperitoneally injected...

Ureaplasma colonization is related with perinatal complications in preterm infants. Little is known about the difference in virulence among various Ureaplasma urealyticum serovars. The aim of this study was to determine U. urealyticum serovars of preterm infants in order to assess whether any of the serovars were associated with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD).

Three hundred forty-four preterm infants with a gestational age...