Your Health: Sep. 27, 1999

GOOD NEWS

SPARE THE SCALPEL Parents aren’t alone in having trouble figuring out if their kid’s bellyache is really appendicitis. In up to 20% of cases, doctors operate only to find a perfectly healthy appendix. Now a study shows that examining the abdomen with ultrasound or a CAT scan is 94% accurate in diagnosing whether a sick child does or does not require surgery. One drawback: a nonradioactive dye must be administered through the child’s rectum before a CAT scan can be performed.

KEY EXCHANGE A small but persuasive study suggests that a novel technique may help multiple sclerosis patients when standard therapies fail. It involves replacing a subject’s own blood plasma with an artificial substitute. Symptoms eased or vanished in 42% of those studied. Caveat: it was tried only on patients having an acute flare-up, not those with chronic, progressive MS.

BAD NEWS

NIT PICKING Getting rid of lice from your kids’ hair may be more difficult than ever. A report that looked at two cities, Boston and Boise, Idaho, shows that the pesky six-legged parasites are increasingly resistant to permethrin, the active ingredient in Nix, a popular over-the-counter remedy. What to do? Doctors suggest that you try commercial preparations; if these fail, ask your physician for a prescription pesticide. Or forget pesticides altogether, and try products with “delipidizing agents,” which are found in health-food stores.

HEAR YE Removing a youngster’s tonsils and adenoids for recurring ear infections is traumatic enough–and it may not do much good either. In most cases, the surgery results in just a slight reduction in the number of new infections–and only for the first year after the procedure.

–By Janice M. Horowitz

Sources–Good News: J.A.M.A. (9/15/99), Annals of Neurology (12/99); Bad News: Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine (9/99), J.A.M.A. (9/15/99)