FAS/pFAS and prenatal alcohol exposure affected the Griffiths scores more than the control group. Efforts are needed to detect pregnancy early and reduce alcohol exposure.

Data were analysed using SPPS version 21 (IBM, USA) and Stata 12.1 (StataCorp, USA). Continuous variables were summarised using means and standard deviations (SDs). Medians and interquartileThis open-access article is distributed under Creative Commons licence CC-BY-NC 4.0.Background. Gastric cancer (GC) is the fifth most commonly diagnosed cancer in the world, with the third-highest associated mortality. It has a varying geographical, ethnic and socioeconomic distribution. Objective. To assess the presentation and management of GC in the Durban metropolitan area, South Africa. Results. The 131 patients were predominantly black African (n=59, 45.0%) and Indian (n=63, 48.1%). Gender was evenly distributed, with 72 males (55.0%) and 59 females (45.0%). The average age of the patients was 60 years (standard deviation 13.3). More than 70% were in advanced stages of cancer and were treated conservatively. There was no significant relationship between body mass index (BMI) and the position of the tumour (p=0.175). Creatinine and albumin levels differed significantly between the genders (p<0.001 and p=0.01, respectively).Conclusions. GC appears to have a disproportionately high prevalence among Indians in Durban, and the prevalence of GC appears to be slightly higher among males. Both these observations may simply reflect referral patterns and warrant further investigation. More than 70% of patients presented with advanced-stage disease, and anaemia was common. No relationship was found between BMI and the location of the tumour, although most of the cancers were in the body and distal part of the stomach.

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Purpose. The aim was to determine if the presence of a voice disorder in speakers of Setswana, an African tone language, will negatively impact the accuracy of identification by typical first language judges of words belonging to tonal minimal pairs. Method. A quasi-experimental between-group comparison and individual case studies were conducted. Five participants with different types and degrees of voice disorders and nine control participants produced 10 tonal minimal word pairs. Five judges had to identify which of a pair was produced.Result. The mean scores of the control and experimental speakers as groups differed, but the difference was not statistically significant. Control participants scored between 19.6/20 and 14.2/20 words correctly identified. Individual data revealed that four of the nine control participants attained at least one perfect score across judges and six had mean scores of 18.0/20 and higher. The highest scoring experimental participant, presenting with a mild voice disorder, attained a mean of 18.0/20. The lowest scoring participant, presenting with the most severe dysphonia, had a mean of 12.2/20 words correctly identified. Conclusion.These preliminary results appear to suggest that a severe voice disorder could compromise lexical tone variation and by implication the intelligibility of a message.