The Strandveld mediterranean-ecosystem of the west coast of South Africa supports floristically diverse vegetation growing on mostly nutrient-poor aeolian sands and extending from the Atlantic Ocean tens of kilometers inland. The cold Benguela current upwelling interacts with warm onshore southerly winds in summer causing coastal fogs in this region. We hypothesized that fog and other forms of ...

OBJECTIVES To determine the risk for bacteremia, in the post-Haemophilus influenzae type b era, in a prospective cohort of well-appearing febrile children 3 to 36 months of age with no obvious source of infection; and to compare the predictive abilities of objective criteria in identification of children with occult pneumococcal bacteremia from those at risk. DESIGN All children seen from 199...

Overview Occult primary tumors, or cancers of unknown primary (CUPs), are defined as histologically proven metastatic malignant tumors whose primary site cannot be identified during pretreatment evaluation.1,2 They have a wide variety of clinical presentations and a poor prognosis in most patients. Patients with occult primary tumors often present with general complaints, such as anorexia and w...

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)- infected patients are at risk of acquiring viral hepatitis, due to common routes of transmission. As the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) reduced the frequency of opportunistic infections and improved survival, viral hepatitis emerged as an important cause of morbidity and mortality in HIV-infected cases. Occult hepatitis B virus (...

Acute cerebellar ataxia and opsomyoclonus are presenting signs of occult neuroblastoma for a substantial proportion of paediatric patients. Cerebellar ataxia may be due to antibodies against the neuroblastoma cross-reacting with cerebellar tissue. This report is of a 26-month-old boy who presented with encephalitis-like features of ataxia, seizures, decreased consciousness, and involuntary move...

PURPOSE Major genetic factors for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) have recently been identified as susceptibility risk factors, including polymorphisms of HTRA1 and CFH genes. The purpose was to analyze the angiographic features of patients harboring homozygous genotypes for HTRA1 and CFH genes in a French exudative AMD population. METHODS Two hundred patients affected with exudative A...