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JR Valdizán-Usón,1 A Cánovas-Martínez,2 MT De Lucas-Taracena,3 F Díaz-Atienza,4 LS Eddy-Ives,5 A Fernández-Jaén,6 M Fernández-Pérez,7 M García-Giral,8 P García-Magán,9 M Garraus-Oneca,10 MA Idiazábal-Alecha,11 M López-Benito,12 G Lorenzo-Sanz,13 J Martínez-Antón,14 MA Martínez-Granero,15 F Montañés-Rada,16 F Mulas-Delgado,17 G Ochando-Perales,18 E Ortega-García,19 A Pelaz-Antolín,20 JA Ramos-Quiroga,21 FC Ruiz-Sanz,22 J Vaquerizo-Madrid,23 A Yusta-Izquierdo241Unidad Trastornos Neurofuncionales, Clínica Montpellier, Zaragoza, 2Hospital Dr Peset, Valencia, 3Hospital 12 de Octubre, Madrid, 4Hospital Virgen de las Nieves, Granada, 5Centre Mèdic Sant Ramon, Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Barcelona, 6Hospital Universitario Quirón, Madrid, 7Centro de Salud La Felguera, Langreo, Asturias, 8Hospital Clínic, Barcelona, 9Unidad Salud Mental, Talavera de la Reina, 10Clínica Universitaria de Navarra, Pamplona, 11Hospital Ntra. Sra. del Pilar, Barcelona, 12Centro Salud Contrueces, Gijón, 13Hospital Ramón y Cajal, Madrid, 14Complejo Hospitalario Carlos Haya, Málaga, 15Hospital Universitario Fundación Alcorcón, Alcorcón, Madrid, 16Hospital Universitario Fundación Alcorcón, Alcorcón, Madrid, 17Hospital Universitario La Fe, Valencia, 18Hospital Universitario La Fe, Valencia, 19Complejo Asistencial Universitario de León, 20Centro Salud Mental, Alcalá de Henares, 21Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebron. CIBERSAM. Department of Psychiatry and Legal Medicine. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 22Hospital General Rio Carrión, Palencia, 23Hospital Materno-Infantil, Badajoz, 24Hospital Universitario, Guadalajara, SpainBackground: The purpose of this multicenter Spanish study was to evaluate the response to immediate-release methylphenidate by children and adults diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as well as to obtain information on current therapy patterns and safety characteristics.Methods: This multicenter, observational, retrospective, noninterventional study included 730 patients aged 4–65 years with a diagnosis of ADHD. Information was obtained based on a review of medical records for the years 2002–2006 in sequential order.Results: The ADHD predominantly inattentive subtype affected 29.7% of patients, ADHD predominantly hyperactive-impulsive was found in 5.2%, and the combined subtype in 65.1%. Overall, a significant lower Clinical Global Impression (CGI) score and mean number of DSM-IV TR (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fourth Edition, Text Revision) symptoms by subtype were found after one year of treatment with immediate-release methylphenidate; CGI decreased from 4.51 to 1.69, symptoms of inattention from 7.90 to 4.34, symptoms of hyperactivity from 6.73 to 3.39, and combined subtype symptoms from 14.62 to 7.7. Satisfaction with immediate-release methylphenidate after one year was evaluated as “very satisfied” or “satisfied” by 86.90% of the sample; 25.75% of all patients reported at least one adverse effect. At the end of the study, 41.47% of all the patients treated with immediate-release methylphenidate were still receiving it, with a mean time of 3.80 years on therapy.Conclusion: Good efficacy and safety results were found for immediate-release methylphenidate in patients with ADHD.Keywords: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, pharmacologic treatment, methylphenidate, satisfaction

Introduction: There has been increasing interest in stroke in children in the last few years. A literature review produced little information on risk factors and other clinical questions. The aim of this study is to describe the characteristics of stroke in children, mainly in order to identify the risk factors, clinical presentation and outcomes., Patients and Methods: A retrospective study was conducted on patients admitted to the Hospital La Fe in Valencia between January 2000 to September 2010 with the diagnosis of ischaemic or haemorrhagic stroke., Results: A total of 76 patients were identified, of whom 44.7% had an ischaemic stroke and 55.3% had a haemorrhagic one. The average age of presentation was 6.8 years; 8.4 years for haemorrhagic strokes and 4.7 years for ischaemic strokes. Headache was the most frequent symptom of presentation. The most frequent risk factor was vascular malformations in haemorrhagic cerebral stroke, and vascular and cardiac disorders in ischaemic stroke. A study of prothrombotic factors was conducted on 34 patients, which was positive in 64.7% of them. As regards outcome, 17% of the patients died; only 3 patients had a secondary epilepsy, and 31% and 60% of the haemorrhagic and ischaemic stokes, respectively, had a hemiparesis., Conclusions: In this study we identified the principal risk factors as well as, the age of presentation, symptomatology and outcome. We would like to emphasise that the age of presentation was earlier in ischaemic strokes than in haemorrhagic ones., (Copyright © 2011 Asociación Española de Pediatría. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: Although attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is usually associated with language disorders, there are few studies of phonological processing and the efficacy of psychostimulants (methylphenidate) on this., Objective: 1. To find whether there are differences in the development of phonological processing, evaluated using linguistic segmentation tests and tests of lexical fluency with a phonetic mediator, between children with ADHD and normal children; and 2. To analyze the effects of methylphenidate on the phonological processing of children with ADHD., Patients and Methods: For the first objective, 37 children with ADHD and 37 normal children aged between 5 and 12 years were studied. Twenty were boys and 16 girls of lower middle class. Of these children, 18 of the ADHD and 18 of the normal group were studied for the second objective, 15 boys and 3 girls. Three different tests were used to evaluate aspects of phonological processing: induced phonological register, linguistic follow up and lexical fluency with phonetic mediation., Results: Significant differences were found between the experimental and control groups when carrying out all types of phonological processing tasks. In the experimental group, with or without methylphenidate, improvement was seen in lexical fluency tasks whereas linguistic segmentation test improvement was limited., Conclusions: These results show the importance of evaluating phonological processing in children with ADHD since this affects learning to read and write.

This is a document prepared by the Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN), which was given to the President of Spain (Mr. José María Aznar) last September with the main aim of examining the current situation of Neurology in our country. It analyses the present and future of Neurology in clinical assistance, teaching and research. To prepare this document the criteria of patients' associations has been considered, including the Declaration of Madrid which has been subscribed by thirty of these associations. In spite of its relevant development in the previous decades, the current situation of Neurology in Spain is far from the ideal. To reach the recommendable menber of 3 or 4 neurologists per 100,000 inhabitants it is necessary to duplicate the present number of neurologists which has been estimated around 2/100,000; this situation is especially urgent in some Autonomous Communities. The most important problems in neurological assistance are: inadequate follow-up of the chronic outpatients, low numbers of neurological beds and of duties of Neurology, as well as of neurological case of patients with urgent neurological disorders. It is also necessary to increase the number of professors of Neurology to adequately cover pregraduate teaching; again there are important differences in teaching positions among Autonomous Communities. Neurology residence should be prolonged from 4 to 5 years. Finally, it is necessary to support the appearance of superespecialised units and to promote a coordinated research with other close specialities including basic neuroscience.

Aim: To analyze the psychological sequelae in long-term survivors of childhood cancer and to establish the relationship between the changes produced in both cognitive (intelligent quotient) and emotional factors (anxiety and depression) and diagnostic and therapeutic variables as well as in sensorial sequelae (visual and auditory)., Methods: One hundred and thirty eight survivors were evaluated. Of these 73 had had acute leukemia and 65 had had solid tumour (nephroblastoma or sympathetic nervous system tumour) diagnosed before the age of 15 years. Elapsed time since diagnosis was at least 10 years and duration of therapy was more than two years. Demographic and social data of the survivors, their parents and siblings, diagnosis, number of relapses and treatment given were obtained from medical records and from individual interviews at the time of assessment. Cognitive and emotional dimensions and the tools used to measure them were intelligent quotient (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for children and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale), anxiety features and state (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for children and adults) and depressive symptoms (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory Depression subscale). Ophthalmologic assessment included visual acuity, measurement of intraocular pressure and ophthalmoscopic examination. Audiologic evaluation included tonal audiometry for frequencies from 125 to 8,000 Hz., Results: Total, verbal and performance intelligent quotients were 102, 106 and 105 respectively for the whole sample. Five percent of survivors scored under 70 (mental deficiency), and 6.5 % over 129 (gifted). The scores of solid tumour survivors were higher than those of leukemia survivors who were cranially irradiated at dosages >= 24 Gy (108 vs 98; p = 0.03), and were similar to those of leukemia survivors irradiated at lower dosages (102) or who had not been irradiated (109). Intelligent quotient correlated positively with age at diagnosis and negatively with cumulated intrathecal methotrexate and cranial irradiation dosages. Survivors of acute leukemia who relapsed scored 14 points less than those who had not relapsed. The most affected cognitive areas were comprehension, arithmetic ability, attention, visual and verbal memory, causative reasoning and visual-motor coordination. No relationship was found between sensory sequelae and cognitive capacities, probably due to the mildness of the sequelae. The prevalence of depression was greater in cancer survivors than in the general population but that of anxiety was lower., Conclusions: Intelligent quotient was within normal limits. Lower scores were related to cranial radiotherapy, age at diagnosis and relapses. Emotionally, the survivors coped successfully with cancer, depressive symptoms being more prevalent than in the general population and anxiety almost negligible.

Objective: The objective of this study was to review the cases of Sturge-Weber syndrome (SWS) diagnosed and followed-up in our center over the last 25 year period in order to evaluate their clinical characteristics, evolution and therapeutical response., Patients and Methods: A retrospective review of the records of patients diagnosed of SSW (facial nevus flammeus at least over the first branch of the trigeminal nerve and ipsilateral leptomeningeal angioma) was performed., Results: Fifteen patients were found in our records, with one of them being excluded from the study due to the lack of follow-up. From the remaining 14, 11 had been diagnosed before the age of 18 months. Nevus flammeus was located on the right side in 8 cases, bilaterally in 3 and on the left side in the other 3 patients. Four cases had glaucoma, 3 of which had good evolution after trabeculotomy. Thirteen of the 14 patients had seizures, usually contralateral to the nevus flammeus. The main drugs used were phenytoin, phenobarbital, valproic acid and carbamazepine. Ten of the 13 patients treated had a good therapeutical response. The EEG was abnormal in 12 patients, two of them occurring during the follow-up period. The main abnormality found was an interhemispherical asymmetry. Nine patients developed hemiparesis. In reference to the neuroimaging. MR was better than CT in evaluating parenchymatous atrophy, which was present in all patients, and the abnormalities of the white and grey matters (9 and 8 patients, respectively)., Conclusions: Early evaluation of newborns with nevus flammeus affecting the first branch of the trigeminal nerve must be done, including an MR with contrast and an ophthalmological exam.