Stitching the fabric back together: child fostering attitudes in the transition to a chronic HIV epidemic

There are an estimated 56 million orphans and vulnerable children across sub-Saharan Africa. Communities typically care for orphan children through informal caring arrangements – either within or outside of kinship networks. Within Kenya, an estimated 250,000 children live on the streets. There is less research related to fostering attitudes of this special population than orphans and vulnerable children generally. Important research over the past decade has illuminated multiple ways in which children are made more vulnerable because of HIV, including parental death and street-migration from HIV-affected households. As HIV transitions from a terminal illness to a chronic, manageable one, research is also required to establish how parents living with HIV can be an asset to children. In this study, we assess whether mothers living with HIV were very willing to foster biologically-related children, and street-involved children, how these fostering attitudes differed from mothers not living with HIV, and whether differences in fostering attitudes by reported HIV status were mediated by social support, family functioning and general self-rated health. Approximately 40% of mothers living with HIV were very willing to provide long-term foster care to biologically-related or street-involved children. This was less than the percentage of mothers not living with HIV, who were very willing to foster biologically-related children (61%) or street-involved children (58%). Significant portions of these differences were explained by social support, family functioning and general self-rated health. Multi-sectoral approaches are suggested by these findings in order to improve the child-fostering capacity of mothers living with HIV. Improving social support, family functioning and general self-rated health among HIV-infected mothers may not only provide protective benefits for the mothers and their children, but also expand the community’s capacity to care for orphan and vulnerable children.     

Epithelial ovarian cancer risk: A review of the current genetic landscape

Ovarian cancer is the fourth most common cause of cancer-related death in women in the developed world, and one of the most heritable cancers. One of the most significant risk factors for epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is a family history of breast and/or ovarian cancer. Combined risk factors can be used in models to stratify risk of EOC, and aid in decisions regarding risk-reduction strategies. Germline pathogenic variants in EOC susceptibility genes including those involved in homologous recombination and mismatch repair pathways are present in approximately 22% to 25% of EOC. These genes are associated with an estimated lifetime risk of EOC of 13% to 60% for BRCA1 variants and 10% to 25% for BRCA2 variants, with lower risks associated with remaining genes. Genome-wide association studies have identified single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) thought to explain an additional 6.4% of the familial risk of ovarian cancer, with 34 susceptibility loci identified to date. However, an unknown proportion of the genetic component of EOC risk remains unexplained. This review comprises an overview of individual genes and SNPs suspected to contribute to risk of EOC, and discusses use of a polygenic risk score to predict individual cancer risk more accurately.     

Gray platelet syndrome: Management of perioperative bleeding in redo cardiac surgery

Gray platelet syndrome (GPS) is a rare (<1/1 000 000) and inherited platelet function disorder characterized by macrothrombocytopenia, α-granule deficiency, and hemorrhages. Bleeding intensity does not correlate with platelet count nor with functional test results. We hereby describe the perioperative bleeding prevention and management of a patient with GPS requiring multiple redo cardiac surgeries.     

Children’s participative citizenship within the context of integral care and daily life

The concept of participation was reviewed as a component of children's citizenship in order to promote a programme for Integral Development. A narrative revision of the literature was carried out as well as a group discussion was organized along with the staff of an Integral Care Programme, in order to identify notions of democracy and child citizenship related to care and rearing. Some elements that favoured the child participation and some parenting skills were identified. Among the elements that must be encouraged in children are: the development of emotional, cognitive and communicative skills and promotion of decision-making; among the parent skills development included are: sensitivity and responsivity; establishing routines and participation experiences. It is important to stand out that the identified elements to promote child participation and parental competences should be adapted to every specific cultural context.     

Altered excitatory and inhibitory amino acid receptor binding in hippocampus of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy.

We examined binding to excitatory amino acid and inhibitory amino acid receptors in frozen hippocampal sections prepared from surgical specimens resected from 8 individuals with medically refractory temporal lobe epilepsy. The excitatory receptors studied included N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA), strychnine-insensitive glycine, phencyclidine, and quisqualate. The inhibitory receptors studied were gamma-aminobutyric acid type A (GABAA) and benzodiazepine. Excitatory and inhibitory amino acid receptor binding were differentially altered in the patients with temporal lobe epilepsy in comparison to 8 age-comparable autopsy control subjects, and changes in receptor binding were regionally selective in four areas. Binding to phencyclidine receptors associated with the NMDA channel was reduced by 35 to 70% in all regions in the hippocampi of the patients. In contrast, binding to the NMDA recognition site and its associated glycine modulatory site was elevated by 20 to 110% in the cornu ammonis (CA) 1 area and dentate gyrus of the hippocampus of the patients. Binding to these sites was unaffected in area CA4. Binding to the quisqualate-type excitatory amino acid receptor was unchanged in all regions except the stratum lacunosum moleculare CA1, where it was increased by 63%. GABAA and benzodiazepine receptor binding was reduced by 20 to 60% in CA1 and CA4, but unchanged in dentate gyrus. The data indicate that excitatory and inhibitory amino acid receptors are altered in the hippocampus of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy.