Abstract:1 2The aim of our study was to investigate the incidence of congenital defects in children born in Croatia during a 3 period of 5 years, its association with extracardiac malformations, its treatment and outcome. Medical 4 information about the patients was obtained from 14 paediatric cardiology centres that cover the whole country.
The objective of this report is to explore the balance between serum and synovial fluid levels of interleukin (IL)-18 in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA).Blood samples were obtained from 81 children with JIA and 18 control children.Synovial fluid samples were collected from 16 children with oligoarticular JIA.Concentrations of IL-18 were determined using commercial kit.Patients with systemic JIA had higher serum levels of IL-18 than patients with other forms of JIA or control children, both during the active (median, range: 6240, 1600 -78750 pg/mL) and inactive (1615, 513 -3270 pg/mL) phase of disease (ANOVA, P<0.05). Levels of IL-18 in sera of children with oligoarticular JIA (255, 89 -4342 pg/mL) were similar to the respective synovial fluid levels (217, 89 -1245 pg/mL).Serum levels of IL-18 were proportional to the erythrocyte sedimentation rate and levels of C-reactive protein, but inversely proportional to the haemoglobin levels.IL-18 appears to be an important mediator of systemic JIA, while it seems of a lesser relevance in pathogenesis of other JIA forms. Therefore, inhibition of IL-18 might be a base for a successful biologic therapy of systemic JIA.
Improving paediatric cardiac services in under-served countries requires significant financial and personnel commitments, but can produce reasonable outcomes.
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