Biomedical subjects

L Mutch

Publications and source records attributed to L Mutch.

30 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

PubMed1986

Report of a meeting on the standardisation of the recording and reporting of cerebral palsy.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Cerebral Palsy↗

PubMed1986

Follow up of babies delivered in a randomized controlled comparison of vacuum extraction and forceps delivery.

Babies delivered in a randomized controlled comparison of vacuum extraction vs. forceps delivery were reassessed at 9 months of age. There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups as regards head circumference, weight, or head circumference to weight ratio, nor in the results of hearing and vision tests. The reasons for hospital readmission, pediatric follow-up and parents' and health visitors' worries appeared to be unrelated to the mode of delivery in nearly all cases. The finding in the original trial that neonatal jaundice was more common following vacuum extraction was reinforced by an additional case of jaundice in the vacuum extractor group which had necessitated readmission to hospital.

Child Development↗

PubMed1986

Secular changes in rehospitalization of very low birth weight infants.

Neonatal survival among very low birth weight infants (less than 1,500 g) has improved dramatically during the last decade. Concern about the quality of life among these survivors has focused mainly on the prevalence of severe motor, sensorineural, and intellectual impairment. This study examined the possible effects of increasing survival on less serious morbidity as evidenced by hospital readmission patterns. The experience of VLBW survivors in a geographically defined population has been compared with that of a randomly selected group of heavier infants. As VLBW infant survival rates improved from 35% to 48% between 1968 to 1972 and 1974 to 1978, the rehospitalization rate before 2 years of age increased from 22% to 27%. In contrast, among heavier infants, rehospitalization rates decreased from 9.8% to 8.9%. The relative risk of readmission associated with VLBW thus increased from 2.2 to 3.0. Although this increase in the overall relative risk of rehospitalization in VLBW infants was not statistically significant, there was a dramatic and statistically significant increase in the relative risk of being readmitted because of structural defects (particularly hernias). Overall, there was a marked decline in the number of days spent in the hospital in both birth weight groups.

Congenital Abnormalities↗

PubMed1985

Perusing the literature: comparison of MEDLINE searching with a perinatal trials database.

The existence of a Register of Controlled Trials in Perinatal Medicine (National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, Oxford, England) has offered an opportunity to assess the efficacy of online searching of MEDLINE, an example of a broad bibliographic database. Retrieval of all relevant randomized control trials (RCTs) in a given field is important in analyses in which results are pooled (meta-analyses). Reports of RCTs of prevention and treatment of neonatal hyperbilirubinemia and prevention of intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) for the years 1966-1983 were sought in both the Register and MEDLINE files. Comparison of subject searches revealed a number of unlisted papers in each file that were then found to be present by an author search. In the MEDLINE searching an amateur was clearly less efficient than an expert, but the expert recovered only 29% of the relevant hyperbilirubinemia papers available in MEDLINE, and only 56% of the identified IVH RCTs. Some of the deficiencies in recovery have been corrected by indexing improvements, such as the capability of identifying text words in abstracts, and the addition of new medical subject heading terms (MeSH) such as RANDOM ALLOCATION. Efficiency will be best facilitated by authors and editors keeping the MeSH terms used by MEDLINE indexers in mind when they compose titles and abstracts.

Cerebral Hemorrhage↗

PubMed1985

Debendox revisited.

Two further studies re-examine the findings by Golding et al. (1983) in Oxford that mothers of children born with oral clefts had been more frequently prescribed Debendox (Bendectin) than had the mothers of matched controls. In Cardiff, 86 283 total births between 1965 and 1979 included 139 infants with oral clefts. Detailed information was obtained about 93 of these infants and matched controls. The relative risk of the birth of an infant with an oral cleft to women prescribed Debendox within 69 days of the first day of their last menstrual period was 0.64 (95% confidence limits 0.12-3.34). No increased effect was found amongst women who smoked. In Aberdeen, 17 640 livebirths between 1976 and 1979 included 31 children with oral clefts. Compared with the non-exposed group the risk of a birth of an infant with an oral cleft to a woman prescribed Debendox in early pregnancy was 0.37 (95% confidence limits 0.09-1.47). These results do not confirm the previous findings in Oxford of a possible association between exposure to Debendox in early pregnancy and the occurrence of oral clefts in the child.

Abnormalities, Drug-Induced↗

PubMed1985

Obtaining parental consent--opting in or opting out?

In a population based project aimed at identifying children with specified disabilities within a health region, there was, rightly, concern about the transfer of data on named children across health district boundaries. Two methods of obtaining parental consent for this process were tested. High recruitment rates were achieved using an 'opting out' approach.

Confidentiality↗

PubMed1985