Gumpel, S. M. (1972). Archives of Disease in Childhood, 47, 330. Clinical and social status of patients with congenital rubella. Eighty-five older patients with congenital rubella attending The Hospital for Sick Children were reassessed, paying special attention to their development and adaptation to their handicaps.They were a very handicapped group of children, nearly all were deaf, over twothirds had ocular defects, and over half had cardiac defects. 15 children had a single defect. Abnormal finger patternings were present in 35 %, but 21% of the mothers of these children had similar patterning. Only 9 children attended normal schools, the rest attended partial hearing units of residential schools for the deaf, and 24 children were in residential care for the mentally subnormal. Of the patients who had left school, 3 work in sheltered workshops, and 4 work as unskilled labour. No patient known to have had rubella antibody has lost antibody and there was no loss of immunological competence.In the past 30 years rubella has been clearly identified as a cause of fetal damage. Much information has been collected on the progress of the severely handicapped child up to school age (Sheridan, 1964), but less is known about his further prospects, and of the children with less severe handicaps.Since 1962 the staff of the Department of Microbiology have made a special study of the relation between infection in pregnancy and congenital defects, and in particular into the effect of rubella as a cause of fetal damage. As part of this study, it was felt that all the patients seen and closely studied during their earlier years should be reassessed, paying special attention to their development and adaptation to their handicaps, together with their antibody and immunological status.Among the important recent work on rubella, two aspects were particularly relevant to this study: firstly, the work of Menser, Dods, and Harley (1967) from Sydney, where they reported a 25-year follow-up of a group of patients with congenital rubella, and showed that many of these patients had become well adjusted despite severe handicaps; and secondly, the work of Kenrick et al. (1968) and Hardy et al. (1969) in which a few patients with
SummaryRubella antibody was detected in 85 (61%) of 139 children aged from 6 months to 7 years with congenital perceptive deafness. Of the 112 children who were aged under 4 years 61 (54%) had rubella antibody (seropositive) compared with 7-1% in randomly selected children of the same age. A close correlation was found between the presence of antibody in children with perceptive deafness and (1) a maternal history of rash or contact in early pregnancy, and (2) with the presence of other rubella-type defects. Intrauterine rubella was thought to be the cause of the deafness in 82 (59%) of the 139 children, in 60 of whom deafness was the only rubella defect detected. Thus intrauterine rubella should be considered a likely cause of congenital perceptive deafness in a child under 4 years in whom rubella antibody is present.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.