Oral glycerol therapy prevents severe neurological sequelae in patients with childhood meningitis. Safety, availability, low cost, and oral administration also add to its usefulness, especially in resource-limited settings.

A post hoc analysis of 654 children with bacterial meningitis showed that the level of consciousness is the most important predictor of death and/or neurological sequelae, more than is etiology per se. This finding emphasizes the need of including a measurement of the presenting status in all studies examining treatment efficacy.

WHAT'S KNOWN ON THIS SUBJECT:Adjuvant dexamethsasone is believed to prevent or relieve hearing impairment, especially in Hib meningitis if instituted before antimicrobial treatment, but no single study has documented this effect. All information derives from metaanalyses in which profoundly different populations have been combined. WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS:This randomized, double-blind clinical trial, the largest in pediatrics, revealed no significant relief in hearing impairment by adjuvant intravenous dexamethsone, oral glycerol, or their combination. Instead, the child's presenting status and age were the most important predictors of hearing loss. abstract OBJECTIVE. Several studies have evaluated dexamethasone for prevention of hearing loss in childhood bacterial meningitis, but results have varied. We compared dexamethasone and/or glycerol recipients with placebo recipients, and measured hearing at 3 threshold levels. METHODS. Children aged 2 months to 16 years with meningitis were treated with ceftriaxone but were double-blindly randomly assigned to receive adjuvant dexamethasone intravenously, glycerol orally, both agents, or neither agent. We used the Glasgow coma scale to grade the presenting status. The end points were the better ear's ability to detect sounds of Ͼ40 dB, Ն60 dB, and Ն80 dB, with these thresholds indicating any, moderate-to-severe, or severe impairment, respectively. All tests were interpreted by an external audiologist. Influence of covariates in the treatment groups was examined by binary logistic regression. RESULTS: Of the 383 children, mostly with meningitis caused by Haemophilus influenzae type b or Streptococcus pneumoniae, 101 received dexamethasone, 95 received dexamethasone and glycerol, 92 received glycerol, and 95 received placebo. Only the presenting condition and young age predicted impairment independently through all threshold levels. Each lowering point in the Glasgow scale increased the risk by 15% to 21% (odds ratio: 1.20, 1.21, and 1.15 [95% confidence interval: 1.06 -1.35, 1.07-1.37, and 1.01-1.31]; P ϭ .005, .003, and .039) for any, moderate-to-severe, or severe impairment, respectively. Each increasing month of age decreased the risk by 2% to 6% (P ϭ .0001, .0007, and .041, respectively). Neither dexamethasone nor glycerol prevented hearing loss at these levels regardless of the causative agent or timing of antimicrobial agent. CONCLUSIONS: With bacterial meningitis, the child's presenting status and young age are the most important predictors of hearing impairment. Little relief is obtained from current adjuvant medications.

Maternal vaccination is an important area of research and requires appropriate and internationally comparable definitions and safety standards. The GAIA group, part of the Brighton Collaboration was created with the mandate of proposing standardised definitions applicable to maternal vaccine research. This study proposes international definitions for neonatal infections.The neonatal infections GAIA working group performed a literature review using Medline, EMBASE and the Cochrane collaboration and collected definitions in use in neonatal and public health networks. The common criteria derived from the extensive search formed the basis for a consensus process that resulted in three separate definitions for neonatal blood stream infections (BSI), meningitis and lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI). For each definition three levels of evidence are proposed to ensure the applicability of the definitions to different settings.Recommendations about data collection, analysis and presentation are presented and harmonized with the Brighton Collaboration and GAIA format and other existing international standards for study reporting.

The HIV rate of MTCT is still high in the Amazonas and challenges for its prevention prevail including lost to follow-up and gaps in critical strategies such as antiretroviral use during pregnancy. More efforts are needed to increase the number of women and babies who successfully complete the prevention of MTCT cascade and work toward elimination of MTCT of HIV.

Pediatric HIV programs should perform routine assessment of caregivers' quality of life, and anxiety and depression symptoms. In this setting, pharmacy records are essential to help identify less-than-optimal adherence.

We report a high prevalence of DRM in this population, including in almost a quarter of children with no reported PMTCT. The high prevalence of TDR observed might compromise ART effectiveness. Results show extensive HIV-1 diversity and expansion of subtype C, which highlights the need for surveillance of HIV-1 subtypes in Amazonas state.

Objective: To evaluate treatment adherence among perinatally-infected pediatric human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) patients followed in pediatric centers in Brazil. Methods: This was a cross-sectional multicenter study. Medical records were reviewed and adherence scale, assessment of caregivers' quality of life (WHOQOL-BREF), anxiety, depression, and alcohol/substances use/abuse were assessed. Outcomes included self-reported 100% adherence in the last three days and HIV viral load (VL) < 50 copies/mL. Statistical analyses included contingency tables and respective statistics, and multivariable logistic regression. Results: 260 subjects were enrolled: 78% children and 22% adolescents; 93% of caregivers for the children and 77% of adolescents reported 100% adherence; 57% of children and 49% of adolescents had VL < 50 copies/mL. In the univariate analyses, HIV diagnosis for screening due to maternal infection, lower caregiver scores for anxiety, and higher scores in physical and psychological domains of WHOQOL-BREF were associated with 100% adherence. Shorter intervals between pharmacy visits were associated with VL < 50 copies/mL (p ≤ 0.01). Multivariable regression demonstrated that caregivers who did not abuse alcohol/other drugs (OR = 0.49; DOI se refere ao artigo: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jped.2014.04.007 ଝ Como citar este artigo: Cruz ML, Cardoso CA, Darmont MQ, Souza E, Andrade SD, D'Al Fabbro MM, et al. Viral suppression and adherence among HIV-infected children and adolescents on antiretroviral therapy: results of a multicenter study. J Pediatr (Rio J). 2014;90:563---71.