The Kid’s Inpatient Database, which provided information on pediatric discharges in 1997 and the 2000 US Census Bureau data, were used to analyze the epidemiology of idiopathic slipped capital femoral epiphysis (SCFE). The authors examined these data to determine incidence rates of SCFE and compared the current incidence rates to those previously reported in published works.

The results showed that the average age of onset was 12.7 years for males and 11.2 years for females. Thus, the age of onset was lower than previously reported in the literature, which was 13.5 years for males and 12 years for females. The authors believed that this downward trend in age of onset suggested that the primary cause of SCFE may be caused by children maturing at a younger age today.

The authors also found that the frequency of SCFE was also higher in black, Hispanic, and Asian children than previously reported. These results cannot be explained at this time and do require further research to understand a possible genetic link to this condition. Furthermore, the study showed seasonal variation north of 40 degrees latitude and a higher incidence of SCFE in children who reside in the Northeast and West. The authors concluded that these data provide evidence that there is a correlation between a diagnosis of slipped capital femoral epiphysis and both genetic and environmental factors.

This was the first study to use both the Kid’s Inpatient Database and the 2000 US Census Bureau data to review the epidemiology of a medical diagnosis. These data bases may provide an exciting new avenue to analyzing available data as an underpinning to creating prevention and/or treatment strategies useful in pediatric practice.

Fifty percent of new HIV infections each year are diagnosed among individuals 25 years of age and younger. The authors studied 1412 adolescents between the ages of 15 and 21 years to determine profiles for risks of HIV in this population. Adolescents were recruited from primary care clinics and through outreach activities in three US cities: Atlanta, GA, Providence, RI, and Miami, FL. Study participants who responded to a questionnaire that they had a history of unprotected sex within the past 90 days were included in the study. Excluded from the study were adolescents who were HIV positive, pregnant at the time of the study, attempting to become pregnant, or had delivered an infant within the past 90 days. Participants were asked to respond to the following items: the number times they had intercourse within the past 3 months with and without condom use; the number of alcohol and marijuana use within the past 30 days; and lifetime use of heroin or narcotics, cocaine, inhalants, and needles to inject drugs. The adolescents were also asked to give a yes or no response to two questions on whether or not they experienced a mental health crises. Data were analyzed using a cluster analysis.

The researchers found that risk behaviors were not evenly distributed among the adolescents and “that there are significant subgroups of adolescents creating ‘islands of risk’ for this population” (p. 624). They found that major risks for contracting HIV among those adolescents differed by gender. The researchers reported different clusters among male and female adolescents. For females, the researchers reported a subset of profiles which included two distinct characteristics: high-risk sexual behaviors and a history of mental health crises along with substance use, arrest, and/or school drop out. For males, the researchers also reported two distinct characteristics, which were unprotected sex in conjunction with marijuana/alcohol use or unprotected sex and mental health crises.

The results of this research study support the use of separate intervention prevention programs that emphasize culture and gender differences for high-risk adolescents to reduce the incidence of HIV.

The study question these researchers asked was: Why does indomethacin prophylaxis prevent patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) but not bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD)? The study was deemed important to either support or diminish the common assumption that patent ductus arteriosus contributes to the development of BPD. This study involved clinical centers in Canada, United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong and was conducted from January 1996 to March 1998. Nine hundred and ninety-nine extremely low–birth-weight infants who survived to a postmenopausal age of 36 weeks were randomly assigned to one of two subgroups: newborns with a PDA who received indomethacin prophylaxis and those with a PDA who received a placebo: newborns without a PDA who received indomethacin prophylaxis and newborns without a PDA who received a placebo. The infants either received 0.1 mg/kg of indomethacin or an equivalent of normal saline placebo at 6 hours of life followed by 3 doses of the study drug given at 24-hour intervals.

The results showed that the incidence of PDA was reduced in those newborns who received indomethacin; however, the risk of BDP was not reduced. The data further revealed that newborns who did not develop PDA but had received indomethacin prophylaxis were at an increased risk of developing BDP.