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Background and Aim of the Work: electroconvulsive therapy is a psychiatric procedure requiring general anesthesia. The choice of the hypnotic agent is important because the success of the intervention is associated to the occurrence and duration of motor convulsion. However, all available anesthetic agents have anti-convulsant activity. We compared the effect of thiopental and propofol on seizures., Methods: We designed a retrospective study at Mood Disorders Unit of a teaching Hospital. Fifty-six consecutive patients undergoing electroconvulsive therapy were enrolled. Patients received fentanyl followed by either thiopental or propofol. We evaluated the incidence and the duration of seizure after electric stimulus at the first session of electroconvulsive therapy for each patient. Adverse perioperative effects were recorded., Results: Patients were 60±12.1 years old and 64% was female. There was a statistically significant higher number of patients who had motor convulsion activity in the thiopental group when compared to the propofol group (25 vs 13, p=0.023). Seizure duration was statistically significant longer in the thiopental group than in the propofol group (35 sec vs 11 sec, p=0.046). No hemodynamic instability, oxygen desaturation episodes, prolonged recovery time from anesthesia and adverse effects related to anesthesia were recorded., Conclusions: Thiopental induction has a favourable effect on seizure when compared to propofol in patients undergoing electroconvulsive therapy.

Background and Aim: Early diagnosis of congenital deafness is fundamental to minimize the negative consequences on a child's educational and psychosocial development. To lower the age of hearing-impaired children at the time of diagnosis, universal neonatal hearing screening (UNHS) is considered essential. The aim of this study was to review tha data of the first 4 years of implementation of UNHS in the University Hospital of Parma., Methods: 11624 infants born between February 2010 and December 2013 were included into the study. Transient evoked otoacoustic emissions were used as screening test. When the newborn had failed at the initial test, he was re-tested within 3 weeks from birth. If the same result was obtained at the second step, the newborns were referred for clinical auditory brainstem response. We calculated quality indicators and compared them with international guidelines., Results: 11592 infants (99.7%) were screened during the birth admission. 10359 (88.5%) were well-babies, while 1233 (11.5%) had audiological risk factors. Among 11592 newborns screened, 42 (3.59‰) had a final diagnosis of sensorineural hearing loss. The incidence of deafness was 1.64‰ in well-babies, and 2.02% in neonates with audiological risk factors. Only 71 infants (0.6%) did not complete the screening program. False-positive rate was 1.7%., Conclusions: The analysis of benchmarks and outcomes of UNHS demonstrated the good quality of our hearing screening program. Introduction of automated auditory brainstem response as well as enhanced enrollment of patients who do not complete the screening could further improve the quality program.