Just a review of some of the common pattern recognition links and association. First on your list we’ve talked about already in some detail is: if you have difficulty feeding, excess weight loss, so they have a clinical scenario for you where the baby has lost greater than 10% of their weight first week of life, think of breast feeding jaundice. If you have high reticulocyte count that strongly suggests hemolysis. Ethnicity may be a clue, so that with South East Asian or Chinese may be suggestive of alpha-thalassemia, whereas African-American, Mediterranean, and some Asians who have recently ingested fava beans or sulfa or another drug, may think of G6PD. Because it is X-linked recessive it could be suggestive of having male siblings with jaundice. Positive family history for anemia, splenectomy, spherocytosis is suggested. Also you may see something that, if it’s not in your syllabus you may want to add in, Northern European descent is linked with spherocytosis as well. Small for gestational age, hepatosplenomegaly, microcephaly all suggest TORCH infections. Neurologic symptoms with a positive urine Clinitest suggest galactosemia. And another important link with galactosemia is early onset to E. coli sepsis.
Apr 15
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