Closing arterial ducts in the neonatal nursery by an echocardiographically guided cardiac catheter technique with minimal morbidity is becoming achievable and is a significant advance in neonatal care.

No abstract

Despite being a common procedure, percutaneous renal biopsy (PRB) carries the potential for complications. The British Association of Paediatric Nephrologist (BAPN) has published standards for pediatric PRB. As Indian data are scarce, we conducted a prospective audit of 100 consecutive pediatric renal biopsies (60% males) under real-time ultrasound guidance. Nephrotic syndrome was the most common indication for PRB (68%) with minimal change disease (30%) and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (25%) being the most common histopathological lesions. Gross hematuria was observed in six cases. Major complications was noted in one case, who needed longer hospital stay. The result of the audit demonstrated achievability of BAPN standards. In addition, we also show the usefulness of 16 gauge biopsy needle over 18 gauge biopsy needles (median number of glomeruli 25, range 3–90 vs 13, range 6–46, P = 0.001) without any increase in complications. Being a single center study, we do hope that our results will encourage a wider survey on the current state of pediatric PRB.

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text.

Phenol (carbolic acid) is one of the oldest antiseptic agents. Apart from being used in many commercially available products, in rural India, it is often used in the household to prevent snake infestation. We hereby present four cases of acute carbolic acid poisoning which we saw over the last monsoon. The cases highlight the multiple routes of absorption of carbolic acid as well as its multi-organ complications which often necessitate intensive care of local therapy decreases systemic phenol absorption from cutaneous exposure and may help in reducing severity.