diagnosis and treatment centres

Question

Hello. I have a 6 months old boy; after being diagnosed with gastric reflux and pneumonia, he took a sweat test. He was hospitalized approximately for one week before the test and in this time he received perfusions and he was treated with ranitidine, cefozoperazone, acetylcystein, salbutamol and fluticasone for pneumonia and reflux. Because the result of the test was high, 120, Kreon treatment was recommended. The boy is well-fed, he hasn’t had weight gaining problems and besides the fact that he coughed but not so much, he does not have any other symptom of this terrible disease. Nevertheless, the result of the sweat test is very high. Initially, we have been told to repeat the sweat test in 3 weeks and also take a genetic test. But now the doctor called us in 2 days to repeat the sweat test, although the 3 weeks haven’t passed. Because we think the diagnosis was established to easily, we wish to take our son in a specialized clinic in Europe. We found references for 2 clinics in Germany and one in Italy. Can you guide us to a specialized clinic? What do you recommend us to do? Thank you with all our hearts!

Answer

Hello,
Cystic fibrosis diagnosis includes the sweat test, which must to be performed 2 times, with a 2 weeks interval between. The result can be influenced by several factors related to the technique, pre-existing treatments and other related diseases. In principle, the diagnosis can be made anywhere in Romania, following the same steps as in Europe. For this reason, you can go to any clinic in Romania or Europe, which is specialized in cystic fibrosis. In here it is very important that sweat test is performed using as method the so-called "pilocarpine ionotophoresis" measuring the chloride concentration in the sweat by an experienced center performing a larger number of those tests per year. In our country, every universitary medical center (Bucharest-3 centers , Timisoara, Cluj, Brasov, Iasi, Craiova, Targu Mures, Galati, Constanta). Hoping that I was helpful,
Prof.Dr. Liviu Pop.

10.11.2011