Background: Asthma is a prevalent disorder in the Gulf region. However, available data concerning asthma control and patients' perception with regard to their disease are still insufficient. Objective: To investigate patients' perception and behavior with regard to the asthma-related burden, the level of asthma control, and asthma management in three Gulf countries. Methods: This study presented a subset analysis of the Asthma Insights and Management survey about the asthma burden and management in the Gulf region and Russia. In this subset analysis, we retrieved the data of the patients from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. Results: The current survey's population was composed of 452 patients. One hundred fifty-four patients (34.1%) rated themselves as having poorly controlled asthma, whereas 60.3% of the patients perceived their asthma as completely or well controlled. However, only two patients (0.4%) had controlled asthma according to the global asthma guidelines criteria for asthma control. Most of the patients (67.7%) reported that their asthma got worse when outdoors. Almost 70% of the patients on daily control plus a quick relief regimen reported that their asthma got worse when they were outdoors. Over the past 12 months, 95 patients (21%) reported asthma exacerbation. More than half of the included patients experienced an asthma attack that stopped their activities, whereas 54.2% of the patients were forced to leave work or school due to an asthma attack, and 53.1% had to cancel an appointment or had to go to bed due to the severity of the attack. With concern to asthma management, only 30.5% of the patients were given a lung function test for the assessment of their asthma. A written action plan for asthma treatment was developed by the physician or the practice nurse for only 21.7% of the patients. Conclusion: In the Gulf region, asthma exerts a substantial burden on patients who are affected. Such a burden significantly impacted patients' quality of life.

Objectives: To determine caries levels among autistic children and compare it to that of non-autistic children.Methodology: It is a cross-sectional comparative study; that compared autistic and non-autistic children. The data was collected from autism centers and private schools in Khartoum, Bahri and Omdurman. With sample size of 132, 44 autistic children, 88 non autistic children. Data was collected using interviews of the children's parents/guardian and oral clinical examination to assess dental caries using the Decayed-Missed-Filled Teeth index (DMFT). Results:The prevalence of caries in the autistic group was 23(72.7%) and that of the non-autistic group was 73(83.0%). The mean DMFT of the non-autistic group was higher than that of the autistic group, 4.59 and 3.09 respectively. The difference between the two groups was significant (p=0.018). Conclusion:The results of our study showed that the mean DMFT among autistic group was significantly lower than that of the non-autistic group. We suggest that this may be due to the lower sweet intake, more help received with teeth brushing and dental insurance among the autistic group. There was no significant difference in the prevalence and severity of dental caries among the autistic and non-autistic group.

Background: Low serum concentration of 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] is associated with hypertension. Hypovitaminosis D has been observed in tropical regions, its association with hypertension is unknown.