p class="abstract"> Background: Prevalence of ear infections in primary school children in Nigeria is scarcely documented and available studies are mostly hospital based. The aim of this Community based study is to define the point prevalence of ear infections among school children.Methods: Using a multi- staged stratified sampling technique, 630 pupils aged 6-12years, attending Government owed primary schools in two local government areas in the South Western Nigeria were recruited for the application of a structured questionnaire, single examination and classification using their socioeconomic index.
Results: Three hundred and seven (48.7%) were females and three hundred and twenty three (51.3%) were males. Chronic otitis media had the highest prevalence of 7.9%, followed by acute otitis media and otitis externa (3.2%) while otomycosis (1.6%) had the lowest. Majority of the infections were unilateral and more prevalent in the males. It was observed that all the ear infections were more prevalent in pupils from the low socioeconomic class although not statistically significant.
Conclusions: These results shows that ear infections is still common in our primary schools and that socioeconomic status and sex of the pupils did not significantly affect the occurrence of these ear infections. There is a need to incorporate health education programme in schools to prevent ear infections and the attendant disabilities.

Background: Endourological practice has revolutionized the diagnosis and the management of patients with various urologic abnormalities. But the level of practice in developing countries is unusually low, basically due to lack of necessary equipment and experienced trained manpower. Objectives: To present our initial experience with endourological procedures in a tertiary hospital in Nigeria with emphasis on the indications, complications and challenges encountered. Setting: The endourological section of our urology unit is new with some facilities for lower urinary tract endoscopes. A lot of the patients with various urological disorders who had endourological procedures were used in this study. Materials and Methods: Aprospective analysis of records of all patients who had diagnostic and therapeutic endourological procedures in our practice from September 2004 to December 2006 was carried out. Indications for the procedure, type of anesthesia, type of irrigation fluid used and complications and challenges encountered during the procedure were noted. Results: 201 medical notes were available for review. Atotal of204 procedures were carried out, representing twenty five percent of the total urological procedures done by the unit during the study period. The commonest indication for an endourological procedure was bladder outlet obstruction with benign prostate hyperplasia responsible in 108.0 (53.7%) of cases followed by cancer of the prostate in 36.0 (17.9%) and urethral stricture in 18 (9%) of cases. The commonest form of endourologoical procedure performed was urethrocystoscopy which constituted 89.6% while the second most common procedure was urethroscopy alone (9.0%) mainly for patients with urethral stricture. There were three complications, acute urinary retention, epididymo-orchitis, and heamaturia, following the procedure. Conclusion: Endourological procedures have refined and improved the management outcome of diverse urological procedures with minimal complications.

Background: Little is known about the relationship between echocardiographic abnormalities and outcome among patients with acute stroke. We investigated the pattern and association of baseline echocardiographic variables with 1-month disability and mortality among patients with stroke in the SIREN (Stroke Investigative Research and Education Network) study. Methods and Results: We enrolled and followed up consecutive 1020 adult patients with acute stroke with baseline transthoracic echocardiography from west Africa. To explore the relationship between echocardiographic variables and 1-month disability (using modified Rankin scale >3) and fatality, regression models were fitted. Relative risks were computed with 95% CIs. The participants comprised 60% men with a mean age of 59.2±14.6 years. Ischemic stroke was associated with smaller aortic root diameter (30.2 versus 32.5, P=0.018) and septal (16.8 versus 19.1, P<0.001) and posterior wall thickness at systole (18.9 versus 21.5, P=0.004). Over 90% of patients with stroke had abnormal left ventricular (LV) geometry with eccentric hypertrophy predominating (56.1%). Of 13 candidate variables investigated, only baseline abnormal LV geometry (concentric hypertrophy) was weakly associated with 1-month disability (unadjusted relative risk, 1.80; 95% CI, 0.97–5.73). Severe LV systolic dysfunction was significantly associated with increased 1-month mortality (unadjusted relative risk, 3.05; 95% CI, 1.36–6.83). Conclusions: Nine of 10 patients with acute stroke had abnormal LV geometry and a third had systolic dysfunction. Severe LV systolic dysfunction was significantly associated with 1 month mortality. Larger studies are required to establish the independent effect and unravel predictive accuracy of this association.