OBJECTIVE

This seven-year, two-center retrospective cross-sectional study aimed to describe the demographic, clinical characteristics and surgical indications of patients managed with open or laparoscopic cholecystectomy in the pediatric age group, and determine these variables’ associations with patient outcomes.

METHODS

Records of all patients less than 19 years old who underwent laparoscopic or open cholecystectomy at Jose R. Reyes Memorial Medical Center (JRRMMC) and National Children’s Hospital (NCH) from January 2015 to December 2021 were reviewed. The gathered data were organized, described and analyzed using univariate and multivariate statistics.

RESULTS

A total of 32 patients underwent open or laparoscopic cholecystectomy at the two institutions. Majority were female (78.1%). The diagnoses included chronic calculous cholecystitis (62.5%), acute calculous cholecystitis (21.9%), choledocholithiasis (12.5%). One (3.1%) patient had empyema of the gallbladder. The 15 – 18 year age group made up 78.1%, with the rest (21.9%) from the 10 – 14 year age group. By BMI percentile, 62.5% were normal, 15.6% were overweight, and 12.5% were obese. Most patients across all conditions (96.9%) had no known hemolytic disorder. Underweight patients (9.4% of the cohort) had statistically higher lengths of stay [F(3,28) = 3.444, p = .030]. No significant associations were found between the categorical outcomes (discharged well, morbidity, mortality) and patient variables (age group, sex, BMI percentile, presence of co-morbidities, symptoms, indication for surgery, operation done).

CONCLUSION

In pediatric patients undergoing laparoscopic or open cholecystectomy, BMI percentile is inversely related to the length of hospital stay.

Human ; Cholecystectomy ; Gallbladder Diseases ; Demography

Background. Emergence of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) poses a major challenge to prevailing disease management. MDR-TB arises from mutations in several genes comprising the resistance determining regions, including rpoB, katG and gyrA. Objective. To detect and characterize mutations in rpoB, katG and gyrA. Methods. Thirty selected Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from the IDS-PGH were subjected to PCR amplification and sequencing. Sequences were compared to the wild type strain H37Rv. Results. Mutations were detected in codons 512, 513, 516, 522, 526, 531 and 533 of rpoB, codons 280, 281, 315 and 333 of katG, and codons 90 and 94 of gyrA sequences. The most frequently mutating codons for rpoB, katG and gyrA were 531, 315 and 94, respectively. A clustering analysis of the sequences showed occurrence of seven, four and three clusters for the genes rpoB, katG and gyrA, respectively. The eight clusters obtained from the concatenated sequences of the three genes represent the eight potential genotypes of local strains. One cluster represents the wild type strain genotype, another cluster represents the XDR strain genotype, and six clusters represent the MDR strain genotypes. Conclusion. These findings indicate the utility of multiple RDR sequence analysis in both identifying specific drug resistance mutation and genotyping of various M. tuberculosis isolates.
TUBERCULOSIS ; THERAPEUTICS ; THERAPY