A survey of Italian and Spanish neonatologists and paediatricians regarding awareness of the diagnosis of FAS and FASD and maternal ethanol use during pregnancy

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Ethanol is the most widely used drug in the world and a human teratogen whose consumption among women of childbearing age has been steadily increasing. There are no Italian or Spanish statistics on ethanol consumption during pregnancy nor any information regarding prevalence of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). There is also a reasonable suspicion that these two diseases are underdiagnosed by professionals from the above-reported countries. The objectives of this study were: 1) to evaluate the experience, knowledge and confidence of Italian and Spanish neonatologists and paediatricians with respect to the diagnosis of FAS and FASD, and 2) to evaluate professionals awareness of maternal drinking patterns during pregnancy.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A multiple-choice anonymous questionnaire was e-mailed to Italian neonatologists registered in the mailing list of the corresponding Society and administered to Italian and Spanish paediatricians during their National Congress.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The response rate was 16% (63/400) for the Italian neonatologists of the National Society while a total of 152 Spanish and 41 Italian paediatricians agreed to complete the questionnaire during National Congress. Over 90% of the surveyed physicians declared that FAS is an identifiable syndrome and over 60% of them identified at least one of the most important features of FAS. Although over 60% Italian responders and around 80% Spanish responders were aware that ethanol use in pregnancy is dangerous, approximately 50% Italian responders and 40% Spanish ones allowed women to drink sometimes a glass of wine or beer during pregnancy.</p> <p>Neonatologists and paediatricians rated confidence in the ability to diagnosis FAS and FASD as low, with over 50% responders feeling they needed more information regarding FAS and FASD identification in newborn and child.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Italian and Spanish neonatologists and paediatricians do not feel confident about diagnosing FAS and FASD. More training is needed in order to accurately diagnose ethanol use during pregnancy and correctly inform pregnant women on the consequences on the newborn.</p

Aspetti fenomenici del disadattamento scolastico nella preadolescenza.

The Authors present the data relative to the administration of the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI - Italian version) and the Sociometic Questionnaire to a random sample of 52 preadolescent students (10-12.6 years old). Successively the students of the sample who showed a risk for affective and social disorders and a poor school achievement were evaluated with Rorschach test

Ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry assay for determination of endogenous ghb and ghb-glucuronide in nails

The short chain fatty acid gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) is a precursor, and the metabolite of gamma-Aminobutyric acid is commonly used as an illegal recreational drug of abuse. Methods: An ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry was developed and validated for endogenous GHB and its glucuronide in nails, to complement hair in forensic contexts for a retrospective detection of psychotropic drugs consumption. Results: GHB endogenous values for children and adolescents, adult females, and adult males in fingernails ranged from 0.3 to 3.0, 3.2, and 3.8 ng/mg, respectively, and toenails values ranged from 0.3 to 1.8, 2.0, and 2.4 ng/mg, respectively. In the three different groups, values of GHB in fingernails were statistically higher than those in toenails. GHB glucuronide could only be detected in finger nails with values ranging from 0.08 to 0.233, 0.252 and 0.243 in children and adolescents, adult females and adult males, respectively. Conclusions: The validated method was efficaciously applied to real finger and toe nails specimens from a population of males and females non GHB consumers. A preliminary cut-off of 5.0 ng/mg nail for endogenous GHB and 0.5 ng/mg for endogenous GHB-Gluc in the general population was proposed. © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All right reserved

Phenomenic aspects of the school maladjustment in preadolescence.

The Authors present the data relative to the administration of the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI - Italian version) and the Sociometic Questionnaire to a random sample of 52 preadolescent students (10-12.6 years old). Successively the students of the sample who showed a risk for affective and social disorders and a poor school achievement were evaluated with Rorschach test

The issue of psychotropic drug monitoring in sexual assault victims

Drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) is a sexual act in which the victim is unable to give or deny consent due unconsciousness caused by intoxication with alcohol and/or psychoactive drugs that have been self-administered (opportunistic DFSA) or surreptitiously administered by the offender (predatory DFSA). . The characteristics of drugs used in DFSA include: being tasteless and odourless and readily soluble in beverages of any type; ability to cause sedation and/or anterograde amnesia; rapidly absorbable after oral administration, and with a most possible rapid clearance from the body (e.g. within 24 h). In DFSA, the victim is unconscious, unable to reject the abuser and unable to clearly remember the circumstances surrounding the intercourse. The consequence is the delay in requiring and carrying out toxicological analysis on the biological matrices of the victim or even the reluctance of the victim to disclose the crime. Moreover, since the so-called “date rape drugs” are often consumed with ethanol and show similar toxicodynamic effects, the diagnosis can be wrongly considered as classical ethanol intoxication

An Item Response Theory-Based Scoring of the South Oaks Gambling Screen–Revised Adolescents

The South Oaks Gambling Screen–Revised Adolescent (SOGS-RA) is one of the most widely used screening tools for problem gambling among adolescents. In this study, item response theory was used for computing measures of problem gambling severity that took into account how much information the endorsed items provided about the presence of problem gambling. A zero-inflated mixture two-parameter logistic model was estimated on the responses of 4,404 adolescents to the South Oaks Gambling Screen–Revised Adolescent to compute the difficulty and discrimination of each item, and the problem gambling severity level (θ score) of each respondent. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was used to identify the cutoff on the θ scores that best distinguished daily and nondaily gamblers. This cutoff outperformed the common cutoff defined on the sum scores in identifying daily gamblers but fell behind it in identifying nondaily gamblers. When screening adolescents to be subjected to further investigations, the cutoff on the θ scores must be preferred to that on the sum scores

Hepatotoxicity associated to synthetic cannabinoids use

Synthetic cannabinoids (SCs) are psychotropic compounds, chemically created in laboratory to mimic cannabinergic brain activity of delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol. The consumption of these compounds for recreational purposes can lead to a variety of adverse effects on health including overdose and deaths. Increasingly popular as substances of abuse since the 2000s, SCs were produced initially to bind and study cannabinoid receptors (they also can be called synthetic cannabimimetics) failing in eliminating the psychoactive effects. Currently, SCs are misused by students and young adults as "natural products" because of their herbal aspect. Actually, these apparently innocuous recreational substances hide toxic effects to health. Reported side effects are cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, neurological, renal, metabolic, ophthalmologic, pulmonary and psychoactive including dependence and withdrawal. A few cases of SCs ingestion have also been associated with liver failure. We herein review the recent literature on the SCs toxicity with particular attention to liver damage aspects