Background. The two most frequent types of microcytic anemia are beta thalassemia trait (β-TT) and iron deficiency anemia (IDA). We retrospectively evaluated the reliability of various indices for differential diagnosis of microcytosis and β-TT in the same patient groups. Methods. A total of 290 carefully selected children aged 1.1–16 years were evaluated. We calculated 12 discrimination indices in all patients with hemoglobin (Hb) values of 8.7–11.4 g/dL. None of the subjects had a combined case of IDA and β-TT. All children with IDA received oral iron for 16 weeks, and HbA2 screening was performed after iron therapy. The patient groups were evaluated according to red blood cell (RBC) count; red blood distribution width index; the Mentzer, Shine and Lal, England and Fraser, Srivastava and Bevington, Green and King, Ricerca, Sirdah, and Ehsani indices; mean density of hemoglobin/liter of blood; and mean cell density of hemoglobin. Results. The Mentzer index was the most reliable index, as it had the highest sensitivity (98.7%), specificity (82.3%), and Youden's index (81%) for detecting β-TT; this was followed by the Ehsani index (94.8%, 73.5%, and 68.3%, resp.) and RBC count (94.8%, 70.5%, and 65.3%). Conclusion. The Mentzer index provided the highest reliabilities for differentiating β-TT from IDA.

BackgroundThis study aims to evaluate the children with chronic cough and to analyze their etiological factors according to the age groups.MethodFive hundred sixty-three children with chronic cough were included. The last diagnosis were established and were also emphasized according to the age groups.ResultsThe mean age was 5.4 ± 3.8 years (2-months–17-years) and 52 % of them were male. The most common final diagnosis from all the participants were: asthma (24.9 %), asthma-like symptoms (19 %), protracted bacterial bronchitis (PBB) (11.9 %), and upper airway cough syndrome (9.1 %). However, psychogenic cough was the second most common diagnosis in the subjects over 6 years of age.ConclusionAsthma and asthma-like symptoms were the most common diagnosis in children. Different age groups in children may have a different order of frequencies. Psychogenic cough should be thought of in the common causes especially in older children.

The trial was registered at Anzctr.org.au number, ACTRN12613000315718.

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Although breastfeeding has been previously reported to protect against childhood obesity, we were unable to find a significant association between obesity and either longer duration of breastfeeding or later introduction to solid foods in our sample.