Fecal calprotectin (FC) in newborns: is it a predictive marker of gastrointestinal and/or allergic disease?

Fecal calprotectin seems to provide a safe and non-invasive means of helping differentiate between patients with organic and non-organic intestinal disease. Aim of our study was to evaluate if FC levels at birth and at first month of age can be a predictive biomarker of organic or functional gastrointestinal disease (FGIDs) and/or allergic disease diagnosed in 2 years old children. Between December 2007 and January 2008 a telephonic interview has been proposed to the parents of 109 consecutive healthy children, in which FC was measured at birth two years before. For our study, a modified version of the original paediatric questionnaire on paediatric functional gastrointestinal disorders (QPGS) was used for the interview. Specific questions were added to detect allergic diseases. We did’nt find any statistically significant result between FC measured at birth and during first month of life in children with allergy or not. The interference of familiarity does not lead to a statistically significant change in the fecal calprotectin values during the first month of life

Duration of meconium passage in preterm and term infants

We reviewed medical records of seven hundred and twenty preterm newborns (,36 days gestational age), admitted to the Neonatology and NICU section of Gynecology, Obstetrics and Neonatology Department of University of Bari, Italy between January 2001 and December 2007, to evaluate first meconium passage and time to achieve RBM (at least two spontaneous evacuations in one day2), correlating both to gestational age (GA), birth weight (BW), sex, type of delivery, 19 and 59 Apgar score (19AS, 59AS), time and type of feeding, and respiratory support

Bowel habit in preterm newborns: effect of new formulas

Preterm infants may pass meconium only after the first 48 hours of life, even in the absence of any gastrointestinal disease. The role of various factors in determining the time of meconium elimination has been recently assessed. Gestational age and start of feeding had been demonstrated to influence first meconium timing. The aim of our study was to evaluate the time of first meconium passage and the time to achieve regular bowel movements (RBM), correlating these two events to different factors such as gestational age (GA), sex, type of delivery [caesarean section (CS) vs spontaneous delivery (SD)], 1 and 5 Apgar score (1AS, 5AS), time and type of feeding, oxygen requirement and any mode of respiratory support

Correlates of sexual functioning in Italian menopausal women.

Abstract OBJECTIVES: To analyze the sexuality of Italian menopausal women. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. POPULATION: Menopausal women consecutively observed during the study period in menopause clinics. METHODS: Women were interviewed about their current and premenopausal sexual activity: sexual intercourse frequency and self-rated sexual desire, capacity for orgasm and sexual satisfaction were recorded. Women were defined as having poor sexual functioning if they had one or less sexual intercourses per week or answered 'absent/poor' to the questions about the sexual domains. RESULTS: Oral hormone therapy (HT) use (odds ratio (OR) 0.43 for desire, 0.54 for orgasm and 0.56 for overall sexual satisfaction, all p < 0.001) and transdermal HT (OR 0.38, 0.53 and 0.53, respectively, all p < 0.001) were significantly associated with lower risk of poor sexual functioning. Higher physical and mental component scores (PCS and MCS, range 0-100) of the Short Form-12 are inversely related to poor sexual functioning (OR by point 0.96, 0.95, 0.95 for PCS and 0.96, 0.96 and 0.95, for MCS, respectively, all p < 0.001). Pain during and symptoms after sexual intercourse were significantly related to desire (OR 1.96 and 1.78, respectively), orgasm (OR 2.22 and 2.06, respectively) and sexual satisfaction (OR 2.02 and 1.79, respectively). The partner's health problems were associated with low sexual intercourse frequency (OR 4.18, p < 0.001) and absent/poor overall satisfaction (OR 2.61, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that, in menopausal Italian women attending menopause clinics, sexual function is associated with the quality of sexual life in reproductive age, partner's health status, current quality of life, HT and occurrence of pain during and symptoms after sexual intercour