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Introduction: South Africa has a high prevalence of co-existing tuberculosis and HIV. As ototoxicity linked to the treatments for these conditions occurs with concomitant exposure to other ear toxins such as hazardous noise exposure, it is important to investigate the combination impact of these toxins. Limited published evidence exists on the co-occurrence of these conditions within this population., Objectives: The objective of this study was to compare the hearing function of gold miners with (treatment group) and without (non-treatment group) the history of tuberculosis treatment, in order to determine which group had increased risk of noise induced hearing loss. Furthermore, possible influence of age and HIV in these two groups was examined., Methods: A retrospective record review of 102 miners' audiological records, divided into two groups, was conducted, with data analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively., Results: Findings suggest that gold miners with a history of tuberculosis treatment have worse hearing thresholds in the high frequencies when compared to those without this history; with evidence of a noise induced hearing loss notch at 6000Hz in both groups. Pearson's correlations showed values between 0 and 0.3 (0 and -0.3) which are indicative of a weak positive (negative) correlation between HIV and hearing loss, as well as between hearing loss and age in this population., Conclusions: Current findings highlight the importance of strategic hearing conservation programs, including ototoxicity monitoring, and the possible use of oto-protective/chemo-protective agents in this population., (Copyright © 2019 Associação Brasileira de Otorrinolaringologia e Cirurgia Cérvico-Facial. Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda. All rights reserved.)

Objective: An early and accurate recognition of success in treating obesity may increase the compliance of obese children and their families to intervention programs. This observational, prospective study aimed to evaluate the ability and the time to detect a significant reduction of adiposity estimated by body mass index (BMI), percentage of fat mass (%FM), and fat mass index (FMI) during weight management in prepubertal obese children., Methods: In a cohort of 60 prepubertal obese children aged 3-9 years included in an outpatient weight management program, BMI, %FM, and FMI were monitored monthly; the last two measurements were assessed using air displacement plethysmography. The outcome measures were the reduction of >5% of each indicator and the time to achieve it., Results: The rate of detection of the outcome was 33.3% (95% CI: 25.9-41.6) using BMI, significantly lower (p<0.001) than either 63.3% using %FM (95% CI: 50.6-74.8) or 70.0% (95% CI: 57.5-80.1) using FMI. The median time to detect the outcome was 71 days using FMI, shorter than 88 days using %FM, and similar to 70 days using BMI. The agreement between the outcome detected by FMI and by %FM was high (kappa 0.701), but very low between the success detected by BMI and either FMI (kappa 0.231) or %FM (kappa 0.125)., Conclusions: FMI achieved the best combination of ability and swiftness to identify reduction of adiposity during monitoring of weight management in prepubertal obese children., (Copyright © 2016 Sociedade Brasileira de Pediatria. Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda. All rights reserved.)