Thyroid heterotopia revealed by a cervical subcutaneous nodule: a clinical case report

Thyroid heterotopia is an abnormal localization of normal thyroid tissue coexisting with a normal organ on a normal localization. It is a rare condition with a frequency that is not well known in the literature. We report a case of thyroid heterotopia in a 30 month-old girl referred for a painless lower antero-cervical nodule that has been developing for one year with past history no contributory. The clinical examination found a subcutaneous formation mobile in relation to the different deep and superficial planes with bilateral angulomandibular micro-lymphadenopathy. Ultrasounds of the soft parts of the neck showed hypoechogenic tissue reminiscent of thyroid tissue, the thyroid was in place. The thyroid hormone profile was normal. In the absence of a functional scintigraphy device, the diagnosis was confirmed with a pathology exam after surgery. We discuss the diagnostic relevance of thyroid heterotopia in front of any anterior nodular formation of the neck

A public private partnership to fight against malaria along the Chad-Cameroon pipeline corridor: I. Baseline data on socio-anthropological aspects, knowledge, attitudes and practices of the population concerning malaria

BACKGROUND: Malaria is ranked as the major public health problem in Cameroon, representing 50% of illness in less than five year old children, 40-45% of medical consultation and 40% of the annual home income spent on health. The Cameroon Oil Transportation Company (COTCO) that exploits the Chad-Cameroon pipeline in Cameroon territory, initiated in 2010, a public private partnership project to control malaria along the pipeline corridor. A research component was included in the project so as to guide and evaluate the control measures applied in this pipeline corridor. This study presents the baseline socio-anthropological data as well as the knowledge, attitudes and practices of the local population concerning malaria, its transmission, management and prevention. METHODS: A descriptive cross-sectional survey was undertaken in four sentinel sites (one site per ecological zone) along the Chad-Cameroon pipeline corridor. Three structured questionnaires were used for the survey. Two of them were addressed to the heads of households (one for census and the other to collect information concerning the characteristics of houses and living conditions in households as well as their knowledge, attitudes and practices concerning malaria). The last questionnaire was used to collect information on malaria management and prevention. It was addressed to women who had delivered a living child within the past three years. Interviewers were recruited from each village and trained for two consecutive days on how to fill the different questionnaires. All data were analysed at 5% significant level using Epi-Info, SPSS and Cs PRO 4.0 STATA. Values of p ≤ 0.05 were considered statistically significant. RESULTS: Interviews were conducted in 2597 households (Bipindi 399, Bélabo 835, in Meidougou 820 and Dompta 543). Whatever the study site, 50% of the heads of household were workers of the agro-pastoral sector. Most of the heads of household were men (average 77.4% for men and 22.6% for females). The walls of households were mostly made-up of earth blocks and access to media was low. There were significant differences between mean ages and educational level of the heads of household. Significant differences were also observed between the characteristics of houses and the sites located in the southern regions (Bipindi and Bélabo) and those located in the northern regions (Meidougou and Dompta). The later household heads were younger and less educated than those in the other regions. In most of the study sites, paracetamol was cited as the first intention drug for malaria treatment, followed by chloroquine, a banned drug. More than half of the households studied had a correct knowledge of malaria and its mode of transmission: 120/155 (77.1%) in Bipindi, 244/323 (74.5%) in Bélabo, 171/235 (72.8%) in Meidougou and 118/218 (54.1%) in Dompta. Fever and headache were the malaria signs/symptoms most often cited by the households. An important percentage of pregnant women did not take any malaria prophylaxis during their last pregnancy (up to 43.4% in Bélabo). CONCLUSION: In all the study sites, there were conditions that indicated the all year round transmission of malaria (characteristics of houses and limited access to media making sensitization campaigns difficult). In general, most households had a good knowledge of malaria and its mode of transmission. However, malaria treatment drugs were most often inappropriate. In this study, recommendations were made in order to guide the implementation of control measures

Epidemiology of hepatitis C: related hepatocellular carcinoma in Cameroon

Introduction: hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a global public health problem. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection accounts for close to 24% of HCC in developing countries especially when associated with cirrhosis. There exists no vaccine against HCV to prevent the occurrence of HCV-related HCC. A sound knowledge of the epidemiology and prevention of the initial infection is vital. The aim of our study was to determine the epidemiologic profile of HCV-related HCC in Cameroon to improve its’ management. Methods: it was a prospective study of histologically proven HCV-related HCC seen in two University Centers in Yaounde, Cameroon from March 2012 to January 2013. Demographic data (age, gender), alcohol abuse (>80g/day), presence of cirrhosis, tobacco abuse and parenteral exposition were analyzed. Results: twenty-six patients with histologically proven HCV–related HCC were included (18 men (69.2%) and 8 women (30.8%); mean age +/- SD, 61.46+/-10.18 years). A total of 22 (84.6%) patients had a parenteral exposition, 02 (7.7%) patients were alcoholics and 06 (23.1%) patients were smokers. The proportion of patients with cirrhosis was 69.2% against 30.8% cirrhosis-free. Patients with cirrhosis were relatively younger than those cirrhosis-free (mean age +/- SD, 59.05+/-10.05 years vs 66.87+/- 8.72 years, p=0.06). HCV-related HCC was more prevalent in 60 years and above patients (53.8%, 95%CI: 33.4-73.4). The relative risk of HCC among alcoholics patients was high (RR: 1.5, 95%CI: 1.13-1.99, p<0.05). Conclusion: in Cameroon, HCV-related HCC is more prevalent among age older than 60 years, a finding which is relatively less to that found in western countries, male gender is twice more at risk than female gender and cirrhosis frequency is less compared to that observed elsewhere. HCV and alcohol play a synergistic role in the occurrence of HCC in our environment

Recent trends in cost‐related medication nonadherence among stroke survivors in the United States

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97244/1/ana23823.pd

Video-Game Play Induces Plasticity in the Visual System of Adults with Amblyopia

A pilot study suggests that playing video games may enhance a range of spatial vision functions in adults with amblyopia

Slow wave sleep and accelerated forgetting

We investigated whether the benefit of slow wave sleep (SWS) for memory consolidation typically observed in healthy individuals is disrupted in people with accelerated long-term forgetting (ALF) due to epilepsy. SWS is thought to play an active role in declarative memory in healthy individuals and, furthermore, electrographic epileptiform activity is often more prevalent during SWS than during wakefulness or other sleep stages. We studied the relationship between SWS and the benefit of sleep for memory retention using a word-pair associates task. In both the ALF and the healthy control groups, sleep conferred a memory benefit. However, the relationship between the amount of SWS and sleep-related memory benefits differed significantly between the groups. In healthy participants, the amount of SWS correlated positively with sleep-related memory benefits. In stark contrast, the more SWS, the smaller the sleep-related memory benefit in the ALF group. Therefore, contrary to its role in healthy people, SWS-associated brain activity appears to be deleterious for memory in patients with ALF

Aging and Visual Counting

Much previous work on how normal aging affects visual enumeration has been focused on the response time required to enumerate, with unlimited stimulus duration. There is a fundamental question, not yet addressed, of how many visual items the aging visual system can enumerate in a "single glance", without the confounding influence of eye movements.We recruited 104 observers with normal vision across the age span (age 21-85). They were briefly (200 ms) presented with a number of well- separated black dots against a gray background on a monitor screen, and were asked to judge the number of dots. By limiting the stimulus presentation time, we can determine the maximum number of visual items an observer can correctly enumerate at a criterion level of performance (counting threshold, defined as the number of visual items at which ≈63% correct rate on a psychometric curve), without confounding by eye movements. Our findings reveal a 30% decrease in the mean counting threshold of the oldest group (age 61-85: ∼5 dots) when compared with the youngest groups (age 21-40: 7 dots). Surprisingly, despite decreased counting threshold, on average counting accuracy function (defined as the mean number of dots reported for each number tested) is largely unaffected by age, reflecting that the threshold loss can be primarily attributed to increased random errors. We further expanded this interesting finding to show that both young and old adults tend to over-count small numbers, but older observers over-count more.Here we show that age reduces the ability to correctly enumerate in a glance, but the accuracy (veridicality), on average, remains unchanged with advancing age. Control experiments indicate that the degraded performance cannot be explained by optical, retinal or other perceptual factors, but is cortical in origin