Background: Puberty is a milestone in child and adolescent development, yet a feasible tool to accurately assess pubertal stage in community context has not been validated in Vietnam.

Aim: This study was conducted to validate pubertal self-report among Ho Chi Minh City children and adolescents in comparison with paediatrician’s assessment.

Methods: 80 girls and 76 boys aged from 6 to 17 years old from 5 schools in Ho Chi Minh City were recruited. Self-administered questionnaires about sexual maturation were distributed to participants and results were compared with physician’s pubertal examination. Kappa statistic and Kendall’s τ b were used to evaluate validity of the questionnaire.

Results: Boys tended to overestimate their development stages while girls tended to underestimate. Fair to almost perfect agreement between students’ reports and paediatricians’ evaluation, along with high concordance was recorded, however younger boys (aged 6-11) showed limited evaluation of their own sexual maturation.

Conclusion: This method was inaccurate to evaluate younger boys’ sexual maturation; however, acceptable accuracy in sexual maturation estimation among younger girls and adolescents could allow it to serve as an effective screening tool in community context.

Objectives: We assessed the factors relating to the prevention of the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) for students at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. 

Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed in February and March 2020. A 21 item self-administered questionnaire on the knowledge, attitude, and practices regarding COVID-19 was collected from students of the first to the sixth year using the strategy of simple random sampling. The aim was to establish factors that relate to practices using Odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) which were estimated by the logistic regression model, p-value <0.05 shows a significant difference.

Results: Of the 551 students, 41.0% recorded responses indicating good practices toward prevention measures, while around half the students reported that they did not wash their hands for 20 full seconds (50.5%). The overall rate of good knowledge and positive attitude was 49.0% and 26.1%, respectively. When adjusted for all variables in the logistic regression model, a positive overall attitude was associated with good overall preventive practice; AOR = 1.72 (95% CI: 1.16 – 2.55). Furthermore, students mainly accessed information via social media and television (95.8% and 85.8%, respectively).

Conclusions: There were only 41.0% recorded responses indicating good practices toward prevention measures. Besides, knowledge and attitudes about COVID-19 among students were inadequate. Further health education interventions should be focused to change bad hand-washing habits via mass media messages.

Background: Recently, methods of quantifying total oxidant status (TOS) and total antioxidant capacity (TAOC) were developed to investigate periodontitis. This study was performed to evaluate the salivary TOS and TAOC levels of patients with chronic periodontitis (CP) and investigating the association between periodontal clinical parameters and these oxidative stress biomarkers.

Material and methods: 40 participants (23-65 years old) were classified into two groups of 20 each, namely the CP group (participants with CP) and the control group (periodontally healthy controls). Clinical periodontal parameters were monitored, and TOS and TAOC levels were measured using laboratory assays.

Results: TOS level increased in the saliva of patients with CP and the salivary TAOC in patients with CP was significantly lower than that of the control group. The TOS had a positive moderate correlation with the plaque index and clinical attachment loss (r=0.32 and 0.37, respectively) while TAOC was negatively and moderately correlated with clinical attachment loss (r=-0.35).

Conclusion: Salivary TOS and TAOC were distinguished in healthy and chronic PD patients. Further studies are required to comprehensively evaluate the potential role of these biomarkers in diagnosis and treatment evaluation of CP.

Central neurocytoma (CN) is an uncommon brain tumor arising primarily in the lateral ventricular near the foramen of Monro and approximately accounting for 0.1-0.5% of all primary tumors of the central nervous system. We report a case of neurocytoma located in the fourth ventricle and extended into the third ventricle. The tumor is composed of uniform round cells with immunohistochemical features of neuronal differentiation. CN is probably a differential diagnosis with oligodendrogliomas and ependymoma. Morphology and immunohistochemical findings associated with clinical and radiological characteristics may support CN diagnosis.

Type B Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) due to a congenital extra-hepatic porto-systemic shunt is an extremely rare condition. We report the case of a 57-year-old woman, with recurrent episodes of confusion and neuropsychiatric symptoms, who had an elevated serum ammonia level and a superior mesenteric-caval shunt documented on abdominal computed topography (CT) scan. There was no evidence of cirrhosis or portal hypertension. A diagnosis of non-cirrhotic, non-portal hypertension hepatic encephalopathy was made after excluding other causes of confusion and cognitive impairment. The patient was successfully treated by radiologically guided endovascular shunt closure and during 9 months follow up, her neuropsychiatric symptoms did not recur and repeated serum ammonia level results were normal.

Introduction: This study assessed Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) of patients with Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) 6 to 12 months after receiving Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) and/or Optimal Medical Therapy (OMT) at a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 113 patients. Data on demographic, lifestyle behaviours, and HRQOL were collected using a structured questionnaire through face-to-face interviews. HRQOL was measured using EQ-5D-5L and EQ-VAS. Data on co-morbidity and other clinical characteristics were extracted from hospital records. Bivariate and multivariable linear regression models were run to test the differences in EQ-5D-5L utility index and EQ-VAS scores between PCI/OMT and OMT alone groups.

Results: EQ-5D-5L utility index and EQ-VAS scores were lower in PCI/OMT compared to OMT groups, although the differences were not clinically meaningful. Weight status, smoking, and physical activity were associated with EQ-5D-5L utility index score, whereas only physical activity was associated with EQ-VAS score.

Conclusion: The findings suggested that improving sufficient physical activity levels and stopping smoking after PCI or/and OMT may help increase HRQOL among ACS patients.