A comparison of airway interventions and gastrostomy tube placement in infants with Robin sequence

The purpose of this study was to evaluate feeding impairment following non-operative or operative management of airway obstruction in a large series of infants with Robin sequence (RS) by rate of G-tube placement. A retrospective study was conducted at Boston Children's Hospital including 225 patients (47.1% female) with RS treated between 1976 and 2018. Subjects were grouped by intervention required for successful management of airway obstruction: non-operative only (n = 120), tongue–lip adhesion (TLA, n = 75), mandibular distraction osteogenesis (MDO, n = 21), or tracheostomy (n = 9). The operative group had a higher rate of G-tube placement (58.1%) than the non-operative group (28.3%, P < 0.0001). Subjects in the TLA and tracheostomy groups had higher odds of G-tube placement than subjects in the MDO group: odds ratio (OR) 5.5 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.8–17.3, P = 0.004) and OR 27.0 (95% CI 3.2–293.4, P = 0.007), respectively. Syndromic patients and those with gastrointestinal anomalies also had higher odds of G-tube placement: OR 3.5 (95% CI 1.7–7.2, P = 0.001) and OR 5.9 (95% CI 1.6–21.0, P = 0.007), respectively. Infants with RS who require an airway operation and those with a syndromic diagnosis or gastrointestinal anomalies are more likely to require placement of a G-tube. Of the operative groups, MDO was associated with the lowest G-tube rate, compared to TLA and tracheostomy

Two-loop O(GF2MH4){\rm O}\left(G_F^2M_H^4\right) corrections to the fermionic decay rates of the Higgs boson

We calculate the dominant ${\rm O}\left(G_F^2M_H^4\right)$ two-loop electroweak corrections to the fermi\-onic decay widths of a heavy Higgs boson in the Standard Model. Use of the Goldstone-boson equivalence theorem reduces the problem to one involving only the physical Higgs boson $H$ and the Goldstone bosons $w^\pm$ and $z$ of the unbroken theory. The two-loop corrections are opposite in sign to the one-loop electroweak corrections, exceed the one-loop corrections in magnitude for $M_H>1114\ {\rm GeV}$, and increase in relative magnitude as $M_H^2$ for larger values of $M_H$. We conclude that the perturbation expansion in powers of $G_FM_H^2$ breaks down for $M_H\approx 1100\ {\rm GeV}$. We discuss briefly the QCD and the complete one-loop electroweak corrections to $H\rightarrow b\bar{b}, \,t\bar{t}$, and comment on the validity of the equivalence theorem. Finally we note how a very heavy Higgs boson could be described in a phenomenological manner.Comment: 24 pages, RevTeX file, 4 figures in a separate compressed uuencoded Postscript file or available by mail on request. Fig. 1 not included see Figs. 1, 2 in Phys. Rev. D 48, 1061 (1993

Internet pollution discourses, exclusionary practices and the 'culture of over-blocking' within UK schools

Andrew Hop