Canadian Pharmacy Supports Newborn Screening

A board of pediatric and cardiac specialists has summarized a plan for regular screening of newborns to enhance identification of congenital heart illness.  Assessing oxygen levels in newborns' blood before hospital discharge utilizing a noninvasive test, termed as pulse oximetry.

800x600 Normal 0 false false false EN-PH X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";}

A board of pediatric and cardiac specialists has summarized a plan for regular screening of newborns to enhance identification of congenital heart illness.  By assessing oxygen levels in newborns' blood before hospital discharge utilizing a noninvasive test, termed as pulse oximetry, would enable physicians to recognize the possibly deadly but usually curable heart condition, according Canadian pharmacies online.

"One percent of all newborns have congenital heart disease, and about one quarter have critical heart defects which require early intervention," clarified study lead author Dr. Alex R. Kemper, an associate professor of pediatrics at Duke University in Durham, N.C. "And if they're not picked up in a timely way then the baby can even die."

"The challenge is that in the hospital nursery these children look like every other child. It's hard to identify them. And that is also true even when women get mid-pregnancy ultrasounds. Some cases are picked up. But it can be very easy to miss a baby with a life-threatening congenital heart situation," he added.

"This is pretty good news," said Kemper. "But clearly there are still issues that need to be clarified before most hospitals would start doing this. The first is that if the screening picks up indications of a heart defect then the next step is the baby will need to get an echocardiogram, which is a scan of the heart. And a lot of hospitals just don't have that equipment. So some babies will need to be transferred to other hospitals for that."

Also, "we need to mitigate against the risk for false positives by having an effective algorithm in place to ensure that we're limiting the risk for incorrectly identifying defects," he said.  Further, there is no room for errors since we are dealing with babies – to buy Neurontin should never be mistakenly prescribed if seizures occur.

"The seven specific types of heart disease this screening looks for account for somewhere around just a quarter of all congenital heart disease," Dr. Alan R. Fleischman stated, medical director for the March of Dimes Foundation in White Plains, N.Y., and a working team member. "But these types present with devastating symptoms in the first days to weeks of life, and are often not picked up until the child is critically ill."

This easy, noninvasive test has the possibility of identifying these kids prior showing symptoms and give them necessary Canadian prescriptions or surgical attention, he added. "This is a very important diagnostic advance."

 

Article Tags: Congenital Heart

Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR