Medical Bulletin 23/February/2023

Here are the top medical news for the day:

Maternal infection during pregnancy linked with childhood Leukemia among offspring: Study

Maternal genitourinary tract infection during pregnancy was associated with childhood leukemia among offspring, suggests findings from a Danish cohort study published recently in JAMA Netw Open. Maternal infection is common during pregnancy and is an important potential cause of fetal genetic and immunological abnormalities. Maternal infection has been reported to be associated with childhood leukemia in previous case-control or small cohort studies.

The study conducted by Jian-Rong He et al, aimed to evaluate the association of maternal infection during pregnancy with childhood leukemia among offspring in a large study.

They used data from 7 Danish national registries for all live births in Denmark between 1978 and 2015. Swedish registry data for all live births between 1988 and 2014 were used to validate the findings for the Danish cohort. Data were analyzed from December 2019 to December 2021.

Reference:

He J, Yu Y, Fang F, et al. Evaluation of Maternal Infection During Pregnancy and Childhood Leukemia Among Offspring in Denmark. JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(2):e230133. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.0133

Severe form of mpox with high mortality seen in people with advanced HIV, finds study

An international collaboration of clinicians published the largest case series of mpox infection in people with advanced HIV disease in The Lancet, in which they identify a new severe form of mpox. The majority of mpox infections in the current multi-country outbreak have occurred in sexual networks of gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men.

The SHARE-net clinicians looked at 382 people with advanced HIV disease and mpox, including 27 of the 60 people reported to have died of mpox during the multi-country outbreak. The group describes a very severe form of mpox characterised by widespread, large, necrotising skin lesions; high rates of severe infections; and, in some cases, unusual lung lesions. This form of the disease carries a 15% mortality in people with advanced HIV disease and immunosuppression. All 27 deaths occurred within this group.

Reference:

Mpox in persons with advanced HIV infection: a global case series,The Lancet,doi 10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00333-1

Physical activity intervention at schools can help prevent childhood obesity: Study

A new Slovenian population-scaled, school-based study shows that by providing additional physical education lessons to young children is effective in preventing childhood obesity, according to findings published in Obesity journal.

The present study leverages a natural experiment that provided the opportunity to examine the effectiveness of Healthy Lifestyle, a real-world, population-based, longitudinal physical activity intervention on body mass index (BMI) in children aged 6-to-14 years.

Reference:

Gregor Starc et al,“Effectiveness of a Population-scaled, School-based Physical Activity Intervention for the Prevention of Childhood Obesity” ,Obesity